


It's Over When It's Over

by Supersinger9000



Category: The Amazing World of Gumball
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Music, Post-Finale, Post-Season/Series Finale, Tags May Change, my take on how it all should end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-01-21 12:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21299120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supersinger9000/pseuds/Supersinger9000
Summary: The show has ended, and all of Elmore is being sucked into The Void, including the Wattersons. But when Gumball comes across a familiar looking remote he has to go back in time in order to save the future.
Comments: 31
Kudos: 87





	1. It All Comes Tumbling Down

_Take it back, take it back my friend_

_All those things that you said about the end_

_This is it, this is me telling you_

_It ain't over till it's over_

_-It's Over When It's Over by Falling In Reverse_

* * *

Something was wrong. Gumball had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach ever since the school day had ended. He couldn’t get his mind off of everything that had happened. Usually whenever he had a wacky adventure he could brush it off pretty quickly, but something was different about this one. Something about it felt...unfinished. Like there was more to the story that he just wasn't seeing. Maybe he should’ve let Rob finish his sentence back there. He would’ve been willing to listen to what he had to say if Tina hadn’t interrupted him, but he didn't exactly stop her. He wasn’t going to try and take on a T-Rex. Still though, he probably could’ve at least moved him out of the school. No one knew where he lived so they just kinda left him there after he was knocked out. He should probably go check on him later, make sure he was okay. This whole thing didn’t make any sense. Why would Rob want to transform everyone into whatever those creatures were? He said something about trying to save them, But save them from what? And how would transforming everyone help? So many puzzle pieces didn’t add up here. He was going to have to go to Rob and get the story straightened out, it was going to drive him crazy until he did. Gumball was lost in thought when he heard a low rumbling sound reverberate throughout the house. “Um, guys? Does anyone know what that was?” He shouted across the house. Darwin poked his head into the living room, following the sound of Gumball’s voice. 

“I have no idea.” He said. They both heard a shrill scream coming from upstairs in the direction of their bedroom. Both siblings eyes went wide and Gumball’s ears pricked up. That sounded just like their little sister. All thoughts of Rob and his plan immediately flew out his mind as fear for his sibling took its place. “Anais!” they shouted as they ran up to go check on her. They burst into their room to see Anais looking fearfully at a giant static patch that tore a hole into their bedroom. Gumball and Darwin’s jaws dropped as they took in the sight. 

“What…the...what is that thing?” Gumball whispered. 

“I don’t know. I just came up to our room and it was here! I kinda assumed you guys had something to do with it.” Anais explained. Normally Gumball would be insulted by this statement but there were bigger things to worry about right now. 

“Trust me, I had nothing to do with this one.” Gumball said. Anais nodded, she could easily tell that his fear and confusion was genuine. All three of them looked at the hole curiously. What was it? And how did it get here? 

“It almost looks like, TV static?” Anais said, inspecting it. 

“But that doesn’t make any sense! Why would there be a hole of TV static in the real world?” Gumball asked. 

“Um, guys? Is it me, or is that hole getting bigger?” Darwin chimed in. The other two looked closer and saw that Darwin was right, it was getting bigger. In fact, it was starting to swallow up the furniture in their bedroom. 

“Oh, that’s not good.” Gumball mumbled. 

“I think we should get out of here.” Anais said. Gumball and Darwin both nodded and they ran, wordlessly deciding to go try and find their parents. Usually they could handle things on their own but this? This felt out of their depth. They ran downstairs and stopped short when they saw another patch of static eating up their living room. All of the Wattersons turned tail and ran outside, away from the static patch. They closed the front door and leaned up against it, breathing heavy. 

“There’s another one? Where did that even come from? How did it get there so quickly?” Gumball asked. 

“And more importantly where are Mom and Dad?” Darwin asked. Gumball and Anais both looked at him surprised. He usually added a formal Mr. and Mrs. to their names. For him to forget to do that meant that he was seriously worried. 

“I don’t think I remember seeing them since this morning.” Anais added worriedly. They didn’t think much of it when they first got home. Their mom worked late sometimes and maybe their dad just went out to get food or something. They were left alone pretty often so it wasn’t a big deal. But combined with the static patches this could be really bad. A sense of dread swept over all of the kids. They’d seen the static eat furniture, could it eat people too?

“Just calm down, everything will be fine.” Gumball said, more to convince himself than anyone else. “We’ve gotten into plenty of sticky situations before and we’ve always come out ok! We just need to think of a plan or something!” 

“Um, Gumball?” Anais said, pointing upwards. Gumball’s eyes followed her finger and he saw that the sky itself was splitting open to reveal more static, and more static patches were starting to appear all over Elmore. Everyone’s eyes went wide as they tried to process what was happening in front of them. 

“What is going on? Why is this happening? Why is all this static showing up?” Darwin asked, voice teetering on the edge of hysterical. 

“I….I think this is what Rob was trying to warn us about.” Gumball said. He didn’t realize it until the words were out of his mouth, but it was true. Darwin nodded in understanding as the puzzle pieces clicked for him too while Anais just looked confused. 

“What are you talking about?” She asked. 

“Oh, right, you weren’t there. Where were you anyways?” Gumball asked. Anais opened her mouth to respond but Gumball interrupted her. “Never mind, it's not important. What you need to know is that Rob tried to transform us into these 3D meat puppet things, I don’t know what they’re called, you know, these.” He pulled up a picture of a live action human on his phone and showed it to her. Anais nodded as if to say, “I get the concept, keep going.” “We stopped him, of course, but after he was caught he said something about how he did it for a reason. That something was coming and this would save our lives. What else could he have been talking about but this?” 

“But how would turning you into whatever those things are save your lives?” Anais asked. 

“I don’t know, and now I never will.” Gumball said sadly. Suddenly he heard a rumbling coming from underneath him. He tried to run but it was too late. The ground gave way and all three of the Watterson siblings went tumbling into the void. 


	2. Welcome to The Void

“Gumball! Gumball! Wake up!” Gumball could vaguely hear Darwin shouting at him, but it was kinda groggy. And why did his head hurt so much? He felt like someone had hit it with a frying pan. 

“Five more minutes.” Gumball answered sleepily. Darwin breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like Gumball was ok, and, judging by that last comment, he was acting like himself. Though it seemed like he was in that dreamy state where he wasn’t quite awake and thus wasn’t quite sure where he was. He was going to have to tread carefully here.

“I would give you that, but I think you have to take a look at this.” Darwin told him. Gumball slowly opened his eyes to find that he and his siblings were sitting on a floating platform, surrounded by static and other random junk just floating around in the landscape. Everything was starting to come back to him now, Elmore crumbling, falling through a crack, hitting his head on a platform, no wonder it hurt so much, but none of that explained exactly what this place was. 

“What the what is this place?” Gumball asked. “Where the heck are we?” 

“I was going to ask you the same question.” Darwin responded. “But it does feel kinda familiar, doesn’t it? Almost as if we’d been here before.” Now that he thought about it, this place did seem pretty familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on why or how. 

“I feel the same way.” Gumball answered, the brothers then turned to Anais to see if she had the same feeling, but she just shook her head. 

“I don’t know what you guys are talking about. Besides, if you’ve been here before, wouldn’t you remember it? This place seems like it would be hard to forget.” Both Gumball and Darwin nodded, she did have a point. Eventually they shrugged off the feeling, they had bigger things to worry about now. 

“What’s going on? What’s happening to Elmore?” Gumball asked, Darwin looked at him sympathetically. 

“Elmore’s gone dude. Chunks of it just kept falling in here until eventually there was nothing left.” He told him. Gumball started to tear up, his entire hometown, everything he knew and loved, how could it all just be gone? How could it just disappear like that? Darwin saw this and gave his brother a hug. He knew how he felt. It didn’t quite sink in for him until now because he was more concerned about whether or not his brother was ok. But now that he knew he was the reality of the situation hit him like a ton of bricks. His entire town was gone, he was trapped in a static filled wasteland, and he didn’t know where anyone else was, including his parents. This was quite possibly the worst mess they had ever been in, and that was saying a lot. Seeing Gumball cry was the last straw, his own tears came flooding out soon after. Anais was struggling to keep it together. She couldn’t lose it, not now. She was supposed to be the smart one, the rational one, she couldn’t keep her head clear if she broke down. But this…..this went beyond anything she knew how to fix. She had never felt more small and helpless than she did in that moment, so she gave in and started wailing like the four year old she was. Gumball saw this and pulled her into a group hug. All three of the Watterson siblings just stood there holding each other and sobbing for a long time, until eventually Gumball broke the hug. Standing here crying wasn’t going to do any of them any good, he had to come up with a plan. He wiped away his tears with his sweater sleeve and gave a serious expression. 

“Ok, well, I think we should try and find as many people as we can, there’s safety in numbers you know? Then we can figure out what to do next.” He said. It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it was a start, at least it was something. The other two nodded as they set off to look for others. They made sure to stick together the whole time. This place was so big, and they didn’t want to lose each other. They looked for a while but didn’t find anyone else, it almost seemed as if this void was endless, like it would go on forever. Gumball was shifting through some debris, hoping to maybe find someone buried in it, when he came across a broken TV remote. Normally he wouldn’t give it a second thought but that deja vu feeling he had earlier came back again, but stronger. He felt like he had seen it before, but where? What was so special about this remote? He stared at it awhile, but nothing came to him. While he was staring at the remote his finger accidentally grazed the rewind button and he went rocketing back in time. The sensation knocked him off his feet. He quickly pressed the play button in order to get it to stop. “ _ What the what just happened?”  _ Gumball thought. It was just then that he noticed where he was. He was back in Elmore? Didn’t Darwin tell him that Elmore was gone? 

“Gumball? Are you ok? You’re staring off into space.” He heard a voice beside him say. Darwin? How did he get here? And why was he acting so….chipper? It was like the apocalypse had never even happened. Gumball stared at the remote in his hand. Did he…..did he just go back in time? No, no, that was crazy.  _ “No crazier than what’s already happened.” _ a voice in his head told him. He had to admit it had a point. Earlier today he didn’t think the apocalypse would be possible either. A magic universal remote was nothing compared to that. For the first time since ending up in the void, he felt a glimmer of hope. If this remote could take someone back in time, then maybe he could stop the apocalypse before it started. Sure, it was crazy to think that their ragtag bunch armed only with a TV remote could stop the end of the world, but they had done the impossible before. All the time. At the very least, they had to try. What did they have to lose? Gumball pressed the fast forward button and went back to the present. He had to run this by his siblings, he couldn’t do this without them, half of his plans were complete and total failures without their input, and this might be the most important one of all. 


	3. Going it Alone

“So you’re saying that this remote is magical?” Anais said in a skeptical tone of voice. 

“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true! I went back in time!” Gumball insisted. Anais wasn’t buying it. Even after everything she’s seen today she tried to remain logical, and a magical remote was just too far fetched for her. Darwin was more accepting that it could be possible, but he wasn’t going to believe it on blind faith, he needed some tangible evidence that this was real. 

“Alright, then prove it.” 

“Fine, then I will.” Gumball said. He picked up the remote, pointed it at Anais and pressed a button at random. Anais froze in place, causing both Gumball and Darwin to jump. 

“What did you do to her?” Darwin asked, slightly panicked. It was safe to say that he definitely believed Gumball about the remote now. 

“I think I…..paused her?” Gumball said hesitantly. 

“Well, can you un-pause her?” Darwin asked worriedly, he didn’t want his little sister to be stuck like this. 

“I think so.” Gumball said. He pointed the remote at Anais and pressed the play button, and luckily she started moving again. Both Gumball and Darwin gave sighs of relief. Anais saw this and looked confused. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“What do you remember about the last minute or so?” Gumball asked. Anais gave him a weird look but answered the question. 

“You were telling me about some magic remote and I asked you to prove it to me, which you still haven’t done by the way….” 

“What about after that?” 

“There was no after that, that literally happened a second ago.” Anais said. Gumball and Darwin both gave each other a look. Anais noticed that her brothers were acting weird, weirder than usual. 

“Gumball, what did you do?” She asked. 

“Basically I just did this.” He replied. He then turned the remote facing Darwin and pressed the pause button right before he could utter a word of protest, causing Anais to jump back a little. 

“Whoa” She whispered. She then went over to Darwin and waved her hand in front of his face. 

“He can’t see or hear you. He’s paused right now.” 

“Is he ok?” 

“Of course, I would never hurt him.” Gumball said. He then pressed play on his remote, unpausing Darwin. 

“That isn’t funny Gumball.” Darwin said while Gumball giggled a bit. 

“It is a little funny.” 

“So, this remote made that happen?” Anais asked Gumball. 

“Yeah, and that’s not all it can do. I pressed the rewind button and it actually took me back in time.” 

“Can I see it?”

“Sure” Gumball said as he handed it over to his little sister. She was probably the most likely bet to figure out how it worked. As much as it pained him to admit it, she was the smartest one out of the group. 

“What do these other buttons do?” Anais asked. 

“I don’t know, I haven’t tried them yet.” Gumball said. Anais was surprised, she figured that he would start pressing every button just to see what would happen. She didn’t expect that he would talk it out with them first. She looked over the remote and found it pretty worse for wear. Like it was hastily put back together again after being in pieces. 

“I think someone tried to destroy this remote, it’s clearly dangerous. Maybe we shouldn’t mess with it.” 

“We have to, I think we can use this remote to save everyone.” Darwin and Anais both gave him a curious look. 

“How?” 

“This remote can go back in time. So we can go back and stop this apocalypse before it starts.” 

“And how are we gonna do that? We don’t know how it happened or why. We know nothing about it Gumball, so how can we stop it?” Anais asked. 

“We might not, but I know someone who does.” 

“Rob?” Darwin guessed. Gumball nodded.“You want to talk to Rob? What if he won’t help us? What if he tries to destroy you again?”

. “He might.” Gumball admitted. “But he tried to save us once before, hopefully he’ll be willing to do it again. But either way I have to talk to him. He knew that something was gonna happen, he’s our best bet at getting some answers.” 

“So your plan is to go back in time and talk to Rob, then what?” 

“I don’t know, I guess it depends on what he says. But I have to try this, I have to know. Besides, what do we have to lose? Things can’t get much worse than they are right now.” Both siblings had to admit that he had a point there. 

“I get it. I want to know what’s going on too.” Anais said. “Alright, let’s do it.” Gumball smiled and pressed the rewind button. But he quickly discovered that he was the only one moving back in time. He quickly pressed the play button and then fast forward to get back to where and when he was previously. 

“Gumball? Are you ok?” Anais asked him. One minute he was gung ho about this plan of his and the next he looked completely panicked. 

“I don’t think we can all go.” 

“What?” 

“I pressed the rewind button and I was the only one to go back in time. I think only the person who’s holding the remote can go back.” All of the kids were trying to swallow this new information. Whenever they would get involved in an adventure usually they would all go, or at the very least Gumball and Darwin, but never alone. 

“I can’t-I can’t do this by myself, one of you should go.” Gumball said. 

“No way, you know how I get when I have to make big decisions. I would be a mess out there without you.” Darwin told him. 

“And I don’t know Rob, or where to find him. You’re the one who came up with the plan Gumball, it has to be you. You’re the bravest out of all of us.” That was hard for Anais to admit. As much as she criticised her brothers for their crazy stunts she also admired them a bit. She would never have the courage to do what they did, especially not alone. Gumball teared up a little at that statement. He was touched, but he was also terrified. He had never done any big adventures alone, he would always rope Darwin into it, and usually one of his classmates as well. And this was quite possibly the most important adventure he’s ever gone on. But they were right, he had to be the one to go. He wasn’t about to send his little sister out there by herself, she may be smart but she was only four, and Darwin had a point, he wasn’t much of a leader type. He couldn’t live with himself if anything happened to either one of them. It left him no choice, he was on his own. 

“Guys I-”

“Gumball, you can do this, you’re the one who always comes up with these crazy schemes, if anyone can get us out of this, it’s you.” Darwin told him. Gumball gave a small smile, touched by his brother’s words. 

“Thanks dude.” 

“And if it doesn’t work, you can just come back here and we can work out another plan. Like you said, what do you have to lose?” Gumball nodded. That was true, he could always come back. All he had to do was go talk to Rob, he’d done a ton of things that were harder than that. 

“You guys know that if this works none of this will have happened and you won’t remember any of it.” Gumball told his siblings. They didn’t know that, actually, but it made sense. They thought it over for a second but quickly realized that they had to give them up. If they didn’t they might never see Elmore again. It was the only way to get things back to normal. 

“Well, then you’ll have a good story for us when you get back.” Darwin told him. A few tears escaped Gumball’s eyes. 

“I love you guys.” Gumball said. 

“We love you too Gumball.” Darwin said as both his siblings came in for another group hug. They started tearing up too, they didn’t know when they would see Gumball again, or what would happen to him back in the past. They didn’t like the idea of sending him out on his own, hopefully he would be ok. But they had to, the fate of the world rested in Gumball’s hands, and that was just as ominous as it sounded. Eventually they broke the group hug. “Good luck buddy.” Darwin said. 

“Thanks. I’ll see you on the other side.” Gumball then pressed the rewind button. He tried to stop crying and wipe his tears away. He had to focus, he had a mission now and he couldn’t afford to fail. He went all the way back to the previous day then pressed play. He figured that Rob would probably have his plan at least somewhat in place by then. Now all he had to do was find him. 


	4. So You Just Found Out You're a Fictional Character

Gumball looked all around town for Rob, checking in his usual hiding spots, the dump, the wrecking yard, the library at school. It wasn’t until he want back to the warehouse where he kidnapped Banana Barbara that he managed to find him. 

“Rob? Rob! There you are!” 

“Gumball? What are you doing here?” Rob asked, startled. 

“Never mind that, you know that something bad is going to happen, don’t you? How do you know and why?” Gumball asked frantically. 

“What….what are you talking about?” Rob asked. He couldn’t possibly be talking about  _ that _ could he? How would he even know about that?

“I know you’re planning something. You said it was to save our lives. How would it do that?” 

“How do you…? I mean, I am planning something but…..What are you talking about? How do you know all of this?” Rob asked. Gumball sighed. He wasn’t getting anywhere questioning him like this. He probably should have calmed down some before going to question Rob. It wasn't like he knew why Gumball was so jittery, the apocalypse hasn't happened yet, he couldn't understand the urgency. He was going to have to tell him the truth. 

“Look, I don’t want to fight you, I just want to talk to you. It's hard to explain. I’ll tell you everything I know, but I know you’ve been keeping secrets too, so in return you have to tell me everything you know, deal?” Gumball said, extending his arm for a handshake. Rob hesitated. Did he really want to take this deal? Tell Gumball  _ everything _ he knows? If he did that then Gumball might try to stop him from going through with his plans, and he didn’t have any other ideas. He had to go through with it, This was a matter of life or death. However, it seemed as though Gumball already knew that, already knew how high the stakes were, and he was dying to find out how. Maybe he wouldn’t stop him if he confessed. Maybe if they joined forces, this could actually work. And he didn’t necessarily have to tell him  _ everything. _ The cat boy wouldn’t know if he left out a few things.

“Ok, deal.” Rob said, returning the handshake. 

“You probably won’t believe me, but just know that everything I’m saying is true.” Gumball warned. 

“Trust me, I’ll believe you.” Rob told him. Gumball wasn’t so sure but there was something about his certainty that threw him off a bit, like there was no way his weirdness would be greater than what Rob has already seen. He thought he was the king of weird adventures but it looked like Rob had him beat. He was going to have to ask him about that later. 

“Alright, first things first, I’m from the future.” Gumball told him. Rob’s eye widened but he let the boy keep going. “There was this whole apocalypse where patches of static kept appearing and eating up Elmore. I went back in time in order to try and stop it. I went to you because earlier that day you were in disguise as some superintendent and you kept trying to transform us but we stopped you. You were about to explain why but Tina knocked you out before you could, so I'm giving you the chance to now. You said something about how it might save our lives, so that leads me to believe that you knew this was going to happen. If you know something that could save us then I have to know what it is.” Gumball explained. Rob was speechless. This was his worst fear, come to life. He wasn't crazy, the apocalypse  _ was  _ coming. His plan failed. He didn’t manage to stop it, he didn’t manage to save everyone, that was why Gumball was here. 

“But how did you manage to go back in time?” 

“I used this.” Gumball told him, pulling out the remote. Rob gasped and backed away, almost as if he was afraid of it. 

“Where did you get that?!” Rob whispered in shock.

“I found it in the static. Me, Darwin and Anais all fell in and it was just there.” 

“I thought I destroyed that thing.” Rob muttered to himself. Still, Gumball heard it. 

“Wait, you’ve seen this? You’re the reason it’s broken?” He asked. Rob nodded. “Ok, I think it’s time you start explaining yourself. How did you know about the apocalypse? Why would transforming us help? And what is your history with this remote?” Rob sighed, he was going to explain about the superintendent evil stuff, but he didn’t expect to have to explain about the remote too. And if he explained about the remote, he was going to have to explain about the void. 

“That’s a long story.” 

“Well, I’ve literally got all the time in the world.” Gumball said. Rob nodded. 

“Ok, well. It all started a few years ago when I was put in The Void.” Rob noticed that the young cat boy looked confused and he explained. “That weird static place you mentioned. I call it The Void.” 

“The Void.” Gumball repeated. “I like that name, I think I’ll use it.” 

“Go ahead.” Rob told him. “The Void is a place where all of the mistakes of reality go. Once there everyone forgets that they ever existed. I was one of those mistakes.” 

“But that’s impossible! A person can’t be a mistake! Especially not you!” Gumball blurted out. Whoops, he almost let Rob know how much he cared about him for a second there. Luckily Rob didn’t seem to notice. 

“Try telling the world that.” Rob mumbled. “Anyways, I had been in there for a little while when you, Darwin and Mr. Small showed up trying to rescue your friend Molly.” Gumball looked at Rob in confusion. 

“That can’t be right. I don’t remember ever doing that.” 

“Remember how I said that once something was in there everyone forgot that it existed? The void can mess with your memories. Once you were out it was like you completely forgot you were ever there.” Gumball wasn’t sure what to believe. On the one hand, could he really believe what Rob was saying? This was his arch enemy and he didn’t remember doing any of this. On the other hand, he seemed so sincere about it, it was hard not to believe him. Plus, it would explain that deja vu feeling he had when he was in there.

“I don’t know if I believe you yet, but keep going.” Gumball told him. Rob nodded. This was probably a lot to take in, and he had barely even scratched the surface. 

“Well, when you went to go get Molly, you completely blew past me. I tried to get your attention but I guess you didn’t hear me.” Gumball grimaced, did he really do that? He had no memory of the event but it seemed like it hurt Rob to talk about it. Pain like that was hard to fake. 

“I’m really sorry if I did that.” Gumball said sincerely. Rob ignored him and continued his story. 

“I managed to get out by clinging to the back of Mr. Small’s van. Unfortunately the hole between worlds was closing around me and I became disfigured, as well as lost my memory.” 

“Wait, you didn’t always look like this?” Gumball asked. Rob shook his head. 

“Nope, it was a side effect of The Void. Anyways, I had lost my memory and stayed at your place for a while. That’s when you found me. I got my memories back and I hated you for leaving me behind. For saving Molly but not me. So that’s why I decided to become the villain, to get my revenge on you.” Gumball looked down at the ground in shame. If this was true, it would explain a lot, like why he decided to become a villain in the first place. He realized that he had never really thought about the “why” before now. He just thought it would be cool to have a nemesis to fight. The whole thing was like a game to him, he didn't take it that seriously, and he assumed Rob didn't either. He wished he would’ve asked more questions sooner. Some things probably could’ve been prevented, including some hurt feelings. Gumball also noticed that Rob had said “hated”, as in, past tense. Did he not hate him anymore?

“Ok, but what does this have to do with Superintendent Evil? Or the remote?” Gumball asked. 

“I’m getting to that.” Rob told him. “As an act of ultimate revenge, I bought a reality altering remote from a red van in the mall parking lot.” Gumball’s eyes went wide. He knew that van. He knew that van well.

“You mean The Awesome Store?” Gumball asked. Rob looked confused. 

“What?” 

“Oh, that’s what my dad calls it, “The Awesome Store”, he’s kind of obsessed with that place. I call it that too for convenience because I don’t think it has a name.” Gumball explained. “You know, red van, shadow-y owner, sells all kinds of magical objects?” 

“Yup, that’s the place.” Rob confirmed. Of course, of course it came from The Awesome Store, Gumball thought. He should’ve figured that part out himself. Anything even remotely magical came from that place. “So, I got the remote from this “awesome store” and, well, I used it to make your life miserable.” It was hard for Rob to talk about this part, he was still ashamed of the things that he had done that day. “I crashed your car, tried to break up your parents and accidentally de-aged them, causing you and your siblings to fade from existence, and I tried to toss you into The Void.” Gumball’s eyes went wide when listening to all this. It was a lot to take in. He had no idea that Rob hated him this much. 

“I don’t remember any of this either, did The Void erase my memories again?” 

“Well, no, I’m getting to that.” Rob told him. “Eventually you got the upper hand and you tossed me into The Void instead.” He wasn’t quite sure how Gumball managed to win that fight. It was almost like he knew what was coming before it happened. Did he somehow get ahold of the remote and go back in time that day? It was certainly possible. “I guess maybe you had a change of heart because you went in to save me. That really meant a lot to me. So I used the remote to go back in time so I could fix everything. That’s why you don’t remember it.” Gumball sat in silence for a while, taking it all in. Rob wasn’t lying, he knew that much. Why would he lie about doing such horrible things? Plus it would explain that Deja Vu feeling he got when he first saw the remote. But it was a lot to process. He couldn’t imagine watching his siblings fade from existence, but evidently it did happen. Eventually Rob couldn’t take it anymore and asked. “Well, do you hate me now or what?” 

“I…..I don’t hate you Rob” Gumball admitted. Rob visibly sighed in relief. He was so sure that Gumball would be furious with him, he had every right to be. “I can’t hate you for something that I can’t even remember happening. Besides, you fixed it, even though you didn’t have to.” 

“I did have to. Turns out that I was wrong about you. I couldn’t hate you after you tried to save me, even after everything I did to you.” 

“Is that why you didn’t want to be my enemy anymore?” Gumball asked. 

“Yeah. I couldn’t just go back to the way things were before, pretend like none of that ever happened, even though it technically didn’t.” Gumball nodded in understanding. 

“So, it wasn’t because you were getting bored with me?” Rob looked surprised by this question.

“Bored with you? Is that what you thought?” 

“Yeah, pretty much. It was the only explanation I could think of. A whole day going missing from my memory didn’t exactly cross my mind.” Rob chuckled a bit at this.

“Gumball, you are many things, but boring is not one of them.” 

“I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.” Gumball replied. “So that explains the remote, what about the whole Superintendent Evil thing? I get now that you were trying to save us, but from what? And why would transforming us into whatever those things were save us?”

“You mean humans?”

“Fine, humans, whatever. That’s not exactly my main question at the moment.” Rob sighed, this was the part that Gumball was going to have the hardest time believing. But in order to have him understand what was going on, understand exactly what he was dealing with, he was going to have to tell him the truth. 

“You probably won’t believe me.” Rob warned him. Gumball raised a skeptical eyebrow at this statement. 

“Really? After all the stuff you told me about The Void, the magic remote and my missing memories,  _ this _ is the part that I won’t believe?”

“Yup, believe it or not, it gets even weirder.” Rob told him. “Gumball…..none of this is real.” he said, while gesturing around the room. Gumball gave him a blank stare in response. Well, it appeared that Rob was right, he didn’t believe him. What did he mean by “none of this is real?” What is “this” exactly? And how could none of it be real? What else would it be? 

“That’s…..quite a loaded statement. Care to explain?” Gumball said, the snark almost dripping off his tongue. His tone wasn’t lost on Rob, he knew that he didn’t believe him, but he kept going anyway. 

“Nothing is real. This room, this building, your friends, your family, you, me, none of it. And it’s not real because all of this is just a TV show.” Gumball’s other eyebrow went up at this. 

“A TV show? Really? That’s the story you’re going with?”

“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Because it’s impossible!” Gumball shouted. “Don’t you think I would know if I was on TV?”

“Not necessarily, most fictional characters don’t know that they’re fictional.” 

“Fictional characters?” Gumball repeated. “This is insane. Elmore is real, it has to be!” 

“Give me the remote, I’ll prove it.” Rob told him. He reached for it, but Gumball backed away and held it out of reach. 

“Yeah, no. I’m not giving my nemesis an all powerful remote, no matter how sincere he seems.” Gumball said. He had a point. Rob would never use the remote against him again, not after what happened last time, but Gumball couldn’t have known that. He only had his word to go on, and he hasn’t exactly proved himself trustworthy. 

“Fine, just take my hand and press the rewind button. If this is a trick, you can turn the remote against me.” That was a fair point. Gumball decided to do what he said. He pressed the rewind button and was surprised when Rob traveled back with him.

“Wait a minute, you can bring someone back in time?” 

“Apparently so.” 

“Man, I wish I knew that earlier. Or later, I guess.” Gumball said to himself. He debated going to get Darwin and Anais, but after that dramatic exit he would be too embarrassed to show his face back there again unless he absolutely had to.

“There! Right there! Pause it now!” Rob shouted, interrupting his thoughts. Gumball jumped but did as he said. “Turn around Gumball, you see that?” He turned around and saw a promo graphic surrounding him with the words “Up next: The Amazing World of Gumball” written in giant letters at the top, with his face plastered below. Gumball looked at it for a long time, but he still couldn’t believe it. “What do you think that is Gumball? It’s an advertisement for your show. Now why would that be there, I wonder?”

“That doesn’t…...That doesn’t mean anything.” Gumball said unconvincingly. His denial walls were crumbling down, but he was trying in vain to keep them up. 

“You want more proof? Ok, press the button for the TV guide.” Still in shock, Gumball did as he was told. Rob then proceeded to read off what he saw on the guide for the channel Cartoon Network. “The Amazing World of Gumball, Season 3, Episode 7, The Name, Gumball undergoes a major personality change after discovering his real first name is Zach, and soon his new, arrogant Zach alter ego seeks to take over Gumball permanently. Season 2, Episode 31, The Voice, when Gumball and Darwin receive a threatening e-mail, everyone is a suspect - including themselves. Season 5, Episode 18, The Console, Gumball receives a knock off video game console for his (belated) birthday that turns Elmore into a  _ Final Fantasy-  _ style Japanese role-playing game. Season 4, Episode 12, The Upgrade, Gumball and Darwin upgrade Bobert the robot - and discover that his new operating system is full of buggy and useless applications and is prone to crashing.” Rob went on like that for a while and Gumball’s eyes went wider and wider with each episode description he read. Everything he was talking about, that had all happened to him. Gumball looked over the TV guide to see if what Rob was saying really was what was written, and lo and behold, it was. “Season 6, Episode 27, The Awareness, Gumball-”

“Stop! Just stop!” Gumball shouted. He pressed the fast-forward button as soon as he said this, trying to get away from this nightmare, away from those traitorous words. But getting away from them didn’t erase them, it didn’t make them any less true. He pressed play again once they were back at the warehouse and immediately afterwards curled up into a ball and sobbed. He was vaguely aware that this was the third time he had cried today but he didn’t really care about that at the moment. Everything he had ever known, everything he had ever loved, none of it was real. In a weird way, it made a strange sort of sense, there were all these little clues surrounding him that he never picked up on. That time a clock showed up and didn’t go away, when he would hit something that felt like glass but there was nothing there, how his voice would change every time it came close to breaking, the fact that he hadn’t aged in almost 10 years. There were so many signs, but he didn’t think to wonder about any of them.  _ “Except you did.”  _ A voice in his head told him,  _ “You wondered, of course you did, but you didn’t pursue it because you were afraid of what you might find.”  _ Was that voice right? Was there a part of him that knew all along but was just in denial about it? Rob just kind of stood there awkwardly while Gumball was having his breakdown. He wasn’t great at comforting people so he had no idea what to do right now. Eventually he decided to say something.

“Gumball…...I didn’t mean to make you upset. I just wanted you to know the truth. But I know it can be a daunting thing to come to terms with. Trust me.” 

“I think a part of me always knew, deep down. I just didn’t want to accept it, didn’t want to think about what it all meant, so I convinced myself it wasn’t true.” Rob was taken aback by this admission. So he knew? He really acted like he didn’t. But it wasn’t an act, not really. Denial was a hell of a thing. It ticked him off a bit since that meant that he had to go through this on his own, but on the other hand, he could understand why he did it, even if it was just subconsciously. Rob probably would’ve denied it himself if he had the option. 

“Well, there’s more.” Rob said. Gumball looked at him, frightened. What truth bomb was he going to drop on him this time? “The show’s been canceled, I don’t know when the last episode is, but judging by what you said, I’m guessing it was the same day as the whole Superintendent Evil thing. Heck, I probably caused the last episode to happen with that stupid plan of mine. That’s the reason the apocalypse happened, the show is over, and with it, the world.” Gumball took a deep, shaky breath. So not only was his whole life a TV show, that TV show was over, which threw his future up in the air. Guessing by the wasteland that he just left behind whatever came next wouldn’t be good. His task suddenly seemed a whole lot harder than it did when he first went back in time. How do you stop a TV show from being canceled? An online petition or something? But he didn’t have time for that, and it’s not like the petition would ever be seen in the real world. The fact that there was a “real world” outside of his own was still mind blowing to him. “That’s why I was trying to transform you. I wanted to get us out of this world while we still had the time. I wanted to take you guys into the real world, where we could exist without a TV show. Problem is, only humans get to exist there. Well, only humans get to talk and have intelligence and all that. We couldn’t go as ourselves, we had to transform if we wanted to survive.” 

“Why didn’t you just tell us that? Instead of trying to trick us?” 

“Would you have believed me?” Rob asked. Gumball shook his head no. The only reason he believed Rob now was because he’d proved it by using the remote. Without it there was no way that he would’ve believed him. “Well, there you go.” 

“And trying to make us act normal?” 

“That was so you would know how to act in the real world. Things work differently there than it does here. It’s not as….cartoony. Half the stuff you do here on a regular basis would put you in the hospital. I was trying to stop that from happening.” Gumball nodded. All the puzzle pieces were clicking into place now. He understood everything, even if he didn’t want to. 

“I guess I can understand why you did it.” Gumball told him. “But I still don’t think it’s a good plan. If it worked, we wouldn’t even be ourselves anymore. It would take away everything that makes me, me. There has to be a better way, a way that we can save Elmore and everyone in it as who and what they are.” 

“And how do you propose to do that?” Rob asked, sarcastically. 

“I don’t know.” Gumball admitted. “Maybe we can save the show somehow, get it another season or….”

“All TV shows end eventually, even if it does get another season all we’ll be doing is delaying the inevitable. You can’t save this world Gumball, all you can do is try and save yourself.” 

“No.”

“What?”

“No, I don’t believe that. There has to be a way we can exist off-screen. I’m not just gonna give up on Elmore.”

“Gumball, it’s impossible.”

“You don’t know that!” Gumball shouted. He then took a deep breath and calmed down a bit before continuing. “I’ve done the impossible before, every day. In all of the time you’ve known me, have I ever given up on anything? I can’t just quit now, not when it’s this important.”

“Those other times were different, you were guaranteed success because it was written that way. There’s not gonna be an end credits to come and fix everything this time around. This time, you might not get a happy ending.” Gumball thought his words through. There was a truth to them, to be sure, but he still felt like he had to do something.

“Maybe not, but that’s all the more reason I have to try. Nothing’s going to come and save the day this time. If I don’t step up, nothing gets fixed. This time, it’s all up to me. Besides, it couldn’t be much worse than it is now, so why not at least try to make it better?” 

“Because it’s not real Gumball!” Rob shouted in frustration. “None of it is real, so why do you care?”

“Well, why do you?” Gumball shot back. Rob was taken aback by this question. 

“W-What?” 

“If you really didn’t care you wouldn’t have tried to save us. You would’ve just turned yourself human and left, but you didn’t. You tried to save all of us, even at the risk of your own life. I know that deep down you don’t believe what you’re saying, deep down you really care about people, and maybe even me.” Rob was speechless. In just a few sentences Gumball had managed to completely peg him. He didn’t have a response to that because it was all true. 

“Maybe you’re right.” Rob finally admitted. “Maybe I do care,  _ a little _ . But that doesn’t do us any good right now.” 

“It still might.” Gumball said. “I was actually thinking that you should come with me.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, clearly you know more about this TV world than I do. If we join forces, we might actually be able to pull this off.” Also, he didn’t want to do this alone, but he wasn’t going to tell Rob that. “You tried to save us once, now I’m giving you another chance. So, what do you say? You with me?” 

“Alright, fine. I’m in.” Rob said begrudgingly. Gumball broke out in a huge grin. He knew it, he knew he wasn’t as cynical and bitter as he appeared. “But if your plan doesn’t work, we do mine over again, except this time you’ll find a way to stop yourself from stopping me. Living as a transformed human in the real world is a better alternative than being stuck in The Void forever.” Gumball thought it over and eventually nodded. 

“Ok, but only as a last resort. It’s a better alternative, but not by much.” Rob nodded. 

“So, do you have a plan?”

“Not exactly a plan, but I do have an idea.” Gumball said as he took Rob’s hand and pressed the rewind button on the remote.


	5. Back to "The Future"

“This is your idea? Really? It’s the exact same one I had.” Rob complained. 

“So that’s why you kidnapped Banana Barbara? I always wondered about that. But did you know that she could change the future at the time?”

“No, no I didn’t.” Rob admitted. 

“There you go. Besides, this time, I won’t stop you.”

“So why do you need me for this?”

“Backup, just in case something goes wrong.”

“Things go wrong a lot for you, don’t they?” Rob asked. Gumball tried to come up with a witty retort, but he couldn’t think of one. Rob was right on that one, things did go wrong for him a lot. He settled for giving Rob a glare, which only confirmed to him that he was right and Gumball didn’t have a way to defend himself. They were still in the warehouse but Gumball had rewound back to a month prior, when Rob had kidnapped Banana Barbara and was holding her hostage here. “This isn’t going to work Gumball, I tried getting her to talk for a week and she wouldn’t budge. And how are you even going to get to her? The past version of me is standing guard.” Rob whispered, as to not alert Past Rob. Gumball just grinned and casually tossed a stone in his hand. 

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s the power of a good distraction.” He said. Rob quickly put the pieces together of what he was about to do. 

“Oh come on, there’s no way I would fall for that.” Rob quipped. Gumball gave him a look that said “are you sure about that?” and threw the stone, breaking a window on the other side of the warehouse. Past Rob and Banana Barbara both turned towards the sound of the crash. Past Rob looked back and forth between the source of the sound and Banana Barbara, if he went to go check it out, it would give her a chance to escape, but on the other hand, if someone else had broken in here, he could be in major trouble. “Alright, I’m going to go investigate, but don’t move! Or I will find you.” Past Rob threatened. Current Rob had his head in his hands, did he really just fall for the “stone through the window” trick? Really? That was one of the oldest tricks in the book. Gumball turned to him wearing a self satisfied smirk on his face.

“Told you so.” He said to Rob before rushing over to Banana Barbara. In one hand, he grabbed her and the paintbrush she was holding, it wasn’t very hard, she was just a banana after all. In the other hand he grabbed the easel and her current painting, which consisted of nothing but static. He took her to an area of the warehouse that was relatively hidden away from the rest of it. Not exactly the best hiding place, since it was still somewhat visible, but it would have to do in a pinch. Current Rob saw where he was going and followed. Banana Barbara, for her part, didn’t seem too surprised that Gumball just grabbed her or that a second Rob had made his way onto the scene. 

“This is your plan? Seriously? That stone won’t distract him forever, what are you going to do when he comes back and sees that she’s missing?” Rob whispered to Gumball. 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Gumball whispered back. “And like your plan was any better. What were you even trying to accomplish the first time? Just kidnap Banana Barbara and hope she paints a picture that will tell you exactly how to prevent the apocalypse? At least I know what I want her to paint.” While the two of them were bickering Banana Barbara took the opportunity to try and escape. Luckily Gumball noticed this and grabbed her before she got too far. That was a close call, maybe he should actually focus on the task at hand instead of trying to one-up Rob, but he could just be so infuriating sometimes. “Listen Barbara, I know you probably don’t trust us, we did kinda just kidnap you….twice. But we need you. In about a month Elmore is going to collapse and a lot of people are going to die. But you can stop it, all you have to do is change the future.” None of this news seemed to get through to Barbara, who stared at them with the same glassy look on her face as she always had. 

“Elmore will live on.” She said in her usual dreamy voice. 

“Yes, good, so you’ll help us?” Gumball asked hopefully. 

“Elmore will live on…...in people’s hearts.” Barbara continued. Gumball let out a giant groan. 

“Yeah, I’d much rather live the real way, thanks.” He snarked. He didn’t get it, why wouldn’t she want to help? Didn’t she realize what was at stake here? “God, is she always this frustrating?” He asked Rob.

“Pretty much. I tried interrogating her for a week and didn’t get anywhere. She just kept spouting off these vague platitudes and random nonsense.” Gumball’s scowl worsened when he heard this news. 

“Come on, it’s easy.” He told Banana Barbara. He then grabbed her hand with the paintbrush in it and started painting over the static. “You just have to paint Elmore back into existence. I’ll even do it for you.”

“Gumball that’s not gonna work-” Rob started to say, until he noticed that the painting was changing. All of the new editions Gumball had added to the painting were fading away, as if they were being erased, leaving only the static. Gumball noticed this too and his eyes went wide.

“No, no no no, this has to work!” Gumball shouted. He frantically tried to paint Elmore back, with much messier strokes than before, but the same thing happened. Within seconds it had all faded away. Gumball was starting to panic. This was his only plan, what was he going to do now? “I thought you could change the future!” He shouted at Banana Barbara. 

“Only what’s left.” She told him. Gumball got teary eyed at this news, but was still trying to paint Elmore back, even more frantically this time, even though he knew by now that it wasn’t going to work. 

“Gumball, Gumball stop! It’s not going to work!” Rob said. He snuck up behind Gumball and had to physically restrain him in order to get him to stop painting. He was attacking that canvas like a mad man, this was the only way to get him to snap out of it. Gumball fought Rob for a while as he tried to get back to it, but eventually seemed to realize that it was pointless. Even if he managed to get out of Rob’s grip, nothing he was doing was making a difference anyways. 

“But I have to do something!” he said. Rob felt a pang of sympathy for the young cat. He saw the same desperation in his eyes that he felt when he kidnapped Barbara the first time. He knew what he was going through. Being the only one with the knowledge of what was going to happen, trying to convince others and they won’t listen, trying to help save the world but feeling like you weren’t even making a dent. He’d been through all that and more. He actually started to feel sorry for Gumball, which is something he never thought he would do. He didn’t want anyone else to go through that, not even his worst enemy. 

“And you will. You’ll think of another plan, you’ve got time.” He said, pointing at the remote. This got Gumball to calm down a bit. He was right, they had time, with this remote they could try a million plans over and over again. If this plan didn’t work, they would keep trying until they found one that did. Gumball wiped his tears and was about to suggest that they find somewhere to regroup when they heard a voice calling out through the warehouse. 

“Barbara! Where did you go?!” Past Rob shouted. Gumball and Current Rob both looked at each other with an “oh crap!” look on their face. With Gumball’s little emotional meltdown they had completely forgotten about him. Wordlessly, both decided to push Banana Barbara out in the open where Past Rob could find her and go look for a place to hide. “Ah, there you are.” They heard Past Rob say. Both breathed a sigh of relief at this statement. They started looking for a way to get out of the building, until a bright light on the top of the warehouse drew their attention. 

“Oh no.” Current Rob said with a look of dread on his face. 

“What? What is it?” Gumball asked. He turned toward the light and saw himself, Darwin and Banana Joe fall out of it. His face quickly adopted the same look as Rob’s. Why were they here? He thought he rewound to the day before they were supposed to show up, they were early!

“Looks like the ghosts of our pasts want to come and play.” 


	6. Gumball Vs. Gumball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So things are going to get a little complicated in this chapter since there are two Gumballs and two Robs now and they will be interacting with each other. So, both Past Rob and Past Gumball will always be referred to as "Past Gumball" and "Past Rob." If a line of text refers to someone as just "Gumball" or "Rob", I am referring to the current versions, aka, the versions we started this story with. Past characters without a duplicate like Darwin or Banana Joe will just be referred to by their names as there's no need to point out that they're from the past every time. Ok, now that we all understand what's going on, on with the story!

“What are we gonna do?” Gumball whispered to Rob in a panic. 

“Just press rewind and let’s get out of here!” Rob whispered. Gumball nodded as he reached into his pocket to get it, only to come up empty handed. His eyes got even wider as he started looking for it more frantically, even checking areas where it couldn’t have possibly been, all the while trying not to clue Rob in on what was going on. If he found out that he had lost the remote he would never hear the end of it. 

“Gumball, what’s taking so long?” Rob whispered. 

“Just a slight setback, nothing to worry about.” Gumball said, but his tone of voice, as well as his body language, gave away to Rob exactly what had happened.

“You lost the remote?!” Rob whispered as loud as he could. 

“It couldn’t have gone far.” Gumball tried to reassure him while his eyes scanned the warehouse floor looking for the remote. “See, there it is!” He said. His eyes lit up with relief when he found it, only to dim again when he saw that it was right in the middle of Past Gumball and Rob squaring off. He must have dropped it when he went to grab Banana Barbara. 

“And how do you suppose we get it back? Just waltz in the middle of the fight like “Hey, don’t mind me. I’m just from the future and need to go grab this remote real quick.”” 

“Yeah, I don’t want to get in the middle of that again. Once was enough, thanks.” Gumball said. Rob looked over at the fight and grimaced. His actions seemed legit at the time but they seemed kinda harsh now. Still, they were cartoon characters, so they could brush off any injuries they got pretty quickly. He wouldn’t have used things like a bazooka if they really couldn’t shake it off. At least, he thought he wouldn’t. 

“So, again, how are we supposed to get it back?” Rob whispered. Luckily while they were fighting Past Gumball accidentally kicked away the remote, not seeing it in the scuffle. 

“Ok, I think I can get to it without being seen.” Gumball whispered. To be honest, Rob was probably stealthier than he was, he had secretly stayed at his house for several months without being caught after all, but he still didn’t trust him with the remote. Rob himself was more than willing to hang back and let Gumball jump into the fire instead of him. Gumball took a deep breath and stepped out of his hiding spot, only to immediately fall into neck deep water. Right, the shark, he forgot about that. He turned to look for it but it seemed that the shark fin was focused on Past Gumball instead of him, and he knew from experience that the fin was the only part of the shark that existed. At least for now, he should really get out of the water before Past Rob painted the rest of it. He wasn’t the best swimmer but he managed to get across to where the remote was and pick it up. He grabbed it and was about to head back to Rob when he heard his past self say “Paint him out! Erase him!” Right, he had almost forgotten about this part. This is when he erased Rob from existence. As Past Gumball and Rob grappled for the brush they started accidentally erasing parts of the warehouse, causing debris to fall everywhere. 

“This place is collapsing! We’ve got to go!” Rob shouted, but Gumball couldn’t bring himself to press the rewind button. Was he really just going to let this happen? Let Rob be erased all over again? He probably shouldn’t interfere, and he would be brought back right afterwards anyways. But, then again, wasn’t interfering with the past the whole point? Change the past to save the future? Maybe if he doesn’t get erased, Banana Barbara won’t paint him back in the static and the hole won’t open up. Even if that wasn’t the case, he couldn’t bring himself to stay out of this. Not now that he knew what was really going on. 

“Barbara, the brush!” Oh no, he was almost too late! He was about to erase him! Without thinking he leapt forward and tackled his past self, getting him to drop the brush, while shouting “NOOOO!” the entire time. Everyone else was staring at the two Gumballs in complete confusion, wondering where the second one had come from and why he had just tackled the first one to the ground. Current Rob was standing out of sight with his head in his hands. Part of him was touched that he went to go rescue him, but a bigger part of him thought that Gumball was being an idiot and making things more complicated than they needed to be. Past Gumball was just as confused as everyone else, but his base instincts told him that he needed to get this guy off of him, so he pushed the current Gumball away and stood up. 

“What the what was that for?” Past Gumball asked.

“I know what you were about to do and I just couldn’t…..I couldn’t let you.” Current Gumball explained. 

“Who are you? Why do you look like me?” Past Gumball asked with suspicion in his voice. 

“I’m you, from the future!” Gumball said. Past Gumball scoffed, clearly not believing him. Gumball looked around the room to see if anyone else believed him but they all looked at him with skeptical expressions. Darwin’s in particular hurt the most. He had never seen him look at him like that before. Like he didn’t trust him. It pricked at his heart and eventually he had to turn away. “Wow, really? You’re the ones who almost erased a guy from existence and  _ you _ don’t trust  _ me _ ?”

“Well, If you’re really from the future, then how did you get here?” Darwin asked. 

“I used this.” Gumball said, pulling out the remote. Past Rob gasped when he saw it. Didn’t he destroy that remote? Gumball noticed this reaction and said “Brings back some memories, doesn’t it Rob?” 

“He’s telling the truth.” Past Rob told Past Gumball and Darwin. “There’s only one person who could know about that remote, and that’s Gumball Watterson. He is who he says he is.”

“Well, forgive me, but I’m not going to take the word of my nemesis on this one.” Past Gumball snarked. “And if that’s true, how come _ I  _ don’t know about it?”

“Your memory got wiped because the whole thing never technically happened.” Gumball explained. “You know, you go back in time and change the future but that means the first version of that day didn’t happen, typical time travel stuff. I don’t even remember it, I just know that it happened.” 

“Oh, how convenient.” Past Gumball quipped. Really? Memory loss? Was that the best he could come up with?

“Still don’t believe me? Alright, let’s see. How many of your deep, dark, secrets do I have to reveal before you do?” This should be easy enough, he did plenty of embarrassing things. He just had to think of some that only he would know about. “How about the time when you thought you were kissing Penny but kissed Darwin instead?” Gumball asked. Past Gumball brushed him off.

“Please, the entire school knows about that one. Leslie the gossip hound was there, remember?”

“Fair point.” Gumball admitted. “How about when you got your appendix removed and accidentally kissed Sussie?” 

“Clayton knows about that one. You could easily be him!”

“We both know Clayton is not that good at impersonating people.” Gumball said. Past Gumball had to admit he had a point, but he still wasn’t convinced. Gumball was going to have to bring out the big guns here. “Ooo! I’ve got a good one! When you’re alone in your room you like to dress up as a girl and sing pop songs at the top of your lungs pretending that you’re giving a concert.” Past Gumball went pale and fell silent. He didn’t have a comeback for that one. As far as he knew, no one knew about that except Darwin, who walked in on him once. Both Banana Joe and Past Rob started giggling. 

“Really?” Banana Joe asked. 

“No! Not really!” Past Gumball said, but his gigantic blush told a different story. 

“Or how about when you told Darwin that you only had a couple goldfish before him but in reality you had like six. You just didn’t want to admit to him how many goldfish you’ve killed.” 

“Gumball, is that true?” Darwin asked Past Gumball. 

“What? No, of course not.” Past Gumball said, but it was clear through his tone that he was lying, and Darwin could tell.

“Or how about the time you ended up naked in Penny’s backyard and you had to wear a Santa Claus suit-?” 

“Ok, ok stop!” Past Gumball shouted. “I believe you. You’re me from the future.” 

“Told you.” Gumball said with a smirk. He did enjoy being proven right, even if it was only against himself. 

“But if you’re me from the future, then what are you doing here?” 

“That’s a long story.” Gumball admitted. “But right now I’m trying to stop you from making a horrible mistake! Do you realize what you were about to do? You almost erased a guy from existence!” Now that the heat of the moment was gone, Past Gumball couldn’t believe that he was about to do that. Yeah, Rob was his nemesis, but that was taking it a step too far. Still, his pride wouldn’t allow him to admit that. 

“Why do you care anyways? Rob’s our nemesis!” 

“Because this whole thing isn’t what you think it is!” Gumball shouted. Past Gumball looked unconvinced. “Maybe it’s better if I just show you. Rob! Get over here!” The Current Rob awkwardly shuffled out of his hiding place. The past characters, besides Rob of course, take up a fighting stance when they see him. “It’s ok guys! He’s with me.” 

“Why would you team up with him? He’s our nemesis! He’s trying to destroy us!” Past Gumball said indignantly. 

“He’s not trying to destroy you, he’s trying to save you!” Past Gumball let out a sarcastic laugh. 

“Yeah, right, is that why he tried to shoot me with a bazooka?”

“Come on Gumball, you know deep down that can’t hurt you.” Gumball told him. Past Gumball stopped short as soon as he said that. No one,  _ no one _ , knew that he knew, he didn’t even really admit it to himself. He couldn’t be talking about what he thought he was talking about, could he? Darwin saw this reaction and looked at him, confused. 

“Gumball, what is he talking about?” he asked. 

“No-nothing. I don’t know what he’s talking about.” Past Gumball said unconvincingly. 

“Yes you do. You never admitted it to yourself, but you do. Did you really think you could just ignore it forever? That it wouldn’t come back to haunt you?” Gumball asked. He already knew the answers to these questions, even as he was asking them. Yes, he did think he could just ignore it forever, or at least until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. But he was angry at his past self, maybe if he had paid attention to what was going on sooner they wouldn’t be in this mess, and since he was right there he was taking all his anger out on him. “What did you think was going to happen when the clock ran out? Nothing lasts forever, especially not in television. Rob was just trying to warn you but you didn’t listen, you  _ never  _ listen, and now I’m stuck trying to save everyone because you didn’t pay attention to what was going on! Because you would rather convince yourself that nothing was wrong instead of actually doing something about it!” Everyone was staring at Gumball after that outburst. None of them ever thought they would hear Gumball say any of those things, especially not Gumball himself. Past Gumball was shaken up. Was he saying what he thought he was saying? It was like he was taking all his deepest darkest thoughts and saying them out loud. But why would he say these things? Why would he want to cause his past self pain? What the heck happened to him in the future?

“Gumball, what is he talking about?” Darwin repeated. “What would come back to haunt us?” He didn’t like seeing Gumball worked up, either of them, so he wasn’t sure what side he was on here. But mostly he was just confused. He had no idea what the future version of Gumball was talking about, but based on his reaction he could tell that his version of Gumball did. Did he keep something big from him? That didn’t seem like something he would do, yet the proof was right in front of him. It was clearly upsetting him, so why would he keep something that big to himself? Why not just tell him what was going on?

“Nothing!” Past Gumball insisted. “It’s not real! It can’t be real!” 

“It can and it is.” Gumball told him. “Heck, it’s the only thing around here that is real! Just look around you Gumball! The evidence is everywhere! Why do you think your voice changes every once in a while? Why is it that you can damage property, and give yourselves great injuries but everything goes back to normal in a second? How is it that it’s been over 6 years and you haven’t aged a day? How is it that you can sing a fully prepared song with no rehearsal and background music just starts playing? None of that is normal! None of that should even be possible! Deep down you have to know that!” 

“Stop it!” Past Gumball shouted. “You’re just trying to freak me out! It’s not gonna work! 

“Really?! You still won’t say anything?! How could you be so stubborn! People’s lives are on the line here! Your friends, your family, your town, does that mean anything to you? They’re all going to be gone and it’s like you don’t even care! Heck, you were about to erase Rob from existence just so you wouldn’t have to hear what he was going to say! Don’t pretend that wasn’t a part of why you did it, I know it is. You just toss away information when it’s not convenient for you. You toss away  _ people  _ when they’re not convenient for you. All you ever care about is yourself!” Gumball shouted. Past Gumball gasped, and his eyes filled up with tears. Seeing this caused Current Gumball to snap out of it. What was he doing? He didn’t really think all those things, did he? The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think things through. “Gumball…..I…...I didn’t mean…..”

“I think you’ve said enough.” Darwin told him, while holding his past self in his arms. Seeing the look of disapproval in Darwin’s eyes was the last straw. He burst into tears and ran from the room. He can’t stand to look at them any more. Didn’t want to see their disapproving looks. Rob stood there in stunned silence. Yes, he had certainly thought all those things about Gumball, all that and way worse, and given everything that he learned today and everything he went through it made since that he would break down, but hearing it come from his own mouth felt….wrong somehow. It made sense for Rob himself to think those things, he was a pessimist by nature, but Gumball? Yeah he could get cynical at times but underneath all that he had a core of optimism to him. He didn’t want that to go away. He knew that he was going to have to be the one to snap Gumball out of this. Without Gumball and that remote he wouldn’t be able to save Elmore from cancellation. He needed him, it was purely practical. At least, that’s what he told himself. His real feelings were more complicated. Deep down he wanted Gumball to be ok, he wanted him to go back to his optimistic self, even if it got grating. Deep down, he actually kinda liked the guy, and wanted to help him out. 


	7. Main Character Syndrome

Gumball didn’t end up going very far, he sat right outside of the warehouse crying, so it wasn’t hard for Rob to find him. Gumball looked up at him when he heard his footsteps and scowled. 

“Come here to gloat?” He asked bitterly. 

“No, why would I-?  
“Because you were right all along!” Gumball shouted. “Everything is fake, there’s not gonna be a happy ending, and all I do is make things worse! You were right about me, you were right about all of it.” Rob was slightly taken aback by his outburst. 

“Come on Gumball, this isn’t you.” Rob told him. “You’re supposed to be the positive one, the one who always comes out on top, the one who finds his way out of anything.” 

“Well clearly I’m not.” Gumball countered. “If I was we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. I didn’t find our way out, I just dug this hole even deeper! Elmore is going to crumble and it’s all my fault!” 

“It’s not  _ all _ your fault.” Rob insisted. “You didn’t create the show, and you definitely didn’t cancel it.” 

“But I didn’t listen! I was warned that this was going to happen, time and time again, by you and by the universe itself, but I just brushed it aside. I didn’t  _ do _ anything, I let people down, just like I always do. You were right about me the whole time. I  _ am _ dense, I  _ am  _ insufferable, I  _ am  _ selfish. I just didn’t see it until it was too late.” Gumball collapsed onto the pavement and cried some more, while Rob was searching for words. He was never that great at comforting people, so he didn’t really know what to say. But something about his words were strangely familiar, as they were all thoughts that Rob himself had at one point, about Gumball and about himself. All of a sudden, he knew exactly what to say to get Gumball to snap out of it. 

“I’ll admit, at first I believed all of the things you said about yourself back there. I thought you were just some selfish jerk who had everything handed to you on a silver platter because you were the main character, and to an extent, you kind of are. I mean, there was how you tried to dupe the entire town with the whole Gargaroth thing for candy, not to mention all the times you tried to break Alan, and you and your insensitivity are kind of the reason that I'm like this in the fir--"

“ _ Not helping dude _ ” Gumball cut in. 

"Sorry. But in spite of all that, I was wrong about you. I was wrong about a lot of things. You're not just a selfish jerk. You're better than that. A selfish person wouldn't have risked his life to save me from The Void.” Gumball opened his mouth to protest that he didn’t even remember doing that, but Rob kept talking. “A selfish person wouldn’t be trying to save the world like you are right now. Should you have done something about it sooner? Probably. Did you make mistakes? Definitely. But you are not alone in that.  _ My  _ plan to save everyone is what  _ caused _ the last episode to happen, remember? But beating yourself up over your past mistakes isn’t going to solve anything, trust me, I know. Do you know how much time I wasted thinking about how if I was better or more interesting, I wouldn’t be stuck in the void? Do you know how much time I wasted being angry at you for something you couldn’t control? It was a lot, and none of it got me anywhere. I don’t want you to fall into the same trap. We don’t have time for that. As much as I hate to say it, we need you. We need the Gumball Watterson who isn’t afraid to take risks, the Gumball Watterson who stares down danger and makes a sarcastic quip about it. You’re the only person I can think of who could possibly get us out of this.” Gumball stared at Rob for a long time. He sure wasn’t expecting him to say that. Sure, he was upfront about the fact that he screwed up, but he said a lot of nice things about him too. He was trying to make it sound like it was purely practical, that he was only trying to help because he needed him, but Gumball knew better. He knew that Rob cared, at least a little, even if he wouldn’t admit it. 

“You really mean that?” Gumball asked. “You really think I can do this?” 

“Well, yeah.” Rob admitted awkwardly. He wasn’t very good at talking about feelings, especially with Gumball. “I still don’t know if it’s possible, but you’re our best bet at making it happen.”

“But why? Why me? Why do you think I’m the one who can save the day? Maybe I’m the main character of this show, but there are a ton of people out there more capable than me. All I do is cause trouble.” 

“Because, as good as you are at getting into trouble, you’re even better at getting yourself out. No matter what crazy situation you find yourself in, you always manage to find your way out of it. If you were right and you did make this whole thing worse, you can fix it, just like you always do.”

“You said it yourself, that’s just writing.” Gumball said, brushing him off. 

“Maybe, maybe not. We’ll just have to see. I think we’ve established that I can be wrong.” Gumball cracked a smile at this and Rob was encouraged, but just as quickly it went away again. 

“But…..I’ve never done something like this on my own. I always have Darwin to pull me back, or Anais to come up with a plan. I’m no good alone.” 

“Well, for what it’s worth, you’re not alone. I’m not exactly great at playing the hero either so I don’t know if I’m helping or just making everything worse, but I’m here. For better or worse, I’m here. Sorry, I don’t know if that makes you feel better or not.” Gumball gives him a small smile. 

“Yeah, it actually kinda does.” 

* * *

Meanwhile, Darwin was attempting to comfort Past Gumball in the warehouse, despite still not being entirely sure what just happened. One minute they had been fighting Rob and the next thing he knew some future version of Gumball showed up and started yelling at them about things that made no sense to Darwin, but apparently did to his Gumball. Both Gumballs ended up getting emotional and burst into tears. Banana Joe, Banana Barbara and Past Rob just awkwardly left after that, they didn’t want to get in the middle of this. He had planned to check on the other Gumball eventually, provided he didn’t just time travel out of there, but he felt more loyalty towards the Gumball he started out with and wanted to comfort him first. He was the one who got yelled at after all. Besides, it seemed like Future Rob went after the Future Gumball so at least he wouldn’t be alone. Though how those two teamed up he had no idea. He was hugging Past Gumball as he sobbed in his arms and tried to tell him it was ok.

“Hey, don’t listen to him Gumball. You’re nothing like the person he says you are. You’re strong, loyal, and brave.” Darwin reassured him. Past Gumball just shook his head furiously, rejecting his brother’s words.

“He’s right about me. He’s right about all of it.” Past Gumball said. Darwin gasped and broke the hug. 

“Gumball, don’t say that!” 

“But it’s true! Part of the reason I almost erased Rob  _ was _ because I didn’t want to listen. He was right about that. And I  _ was _ in denial about what was going on, he was right about that too.” Darwin tried to take this in. So it was true, Gumball was keeping something to himself. But what? And why?

“That doesn’t mean that he was right about all of it. You don’t just care about yourself. I know for a fact that you care about me, I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.” Darwin gave Gumball’s hand a squeeze to reassure him when he said that, and Past Gumball gave a small smile. He had a point. He did care about Darwin a lot, always had, and his legs were proof of that. “And it’s not just me. Remember when you convinced Penny to come out of her shell? That shows that you care about her. And what about the time you stood up for Anais against that bully? Or when you helped Mr. Dad reconcile with his father? Or when you helped cheer up Alan, even though you don’t like him very much? Or the countless times you’ve saved the entire town? Would you do all that if you really didn’t care?”

“I guess not” Past Gumball admitted. Darwin had him there, he couldn’t argue against any of that. He knew him too well, he could always see right through him, and this was one of those times where he was grateful for that. 

“Gumball, I know you. I know what kind of person you are, and you are so much more than that other Gumball gave you credit for. You’re caring, you’re funny, you’re weird and wild and I wouldn’t want you any other way. You’re my best friend, and I love you.” Past Gumball was tearing up again, but this time in a good way. He gave Darwin another hug. 

“Thanks dude.” He said, “I don’t get it, why would he say those things?”

“Well, he’s you from the future, right? So if he’s mad at you, he’s mad at himself.” Darwin told him. Past Gumball nodded, that did make sense. 

“I feel kinda bad for him honestly, if he went through what I think he did…….no wonder he’s so upset.” Darwin gave Past Gumball a concerned look. There he went again, talking about some vague danger. He figured it was time to talk to his brother directly about it. This was clearly weighing on him quite a bit, if his reaction to Future Gumball’s questions was anything to go by. This avoidance of the topic had gone on long enough. 

“Gumball, what was he talking about back there? What was this thing that he said that you were ignoring? I feel like you would feel better if you told someone.”

“I don’t know…..” Past Gumball hesitated. 

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ll be right by your side no matter what.” Darwin reassured him. He grabbed his hand when he said this in an attempt to comfort him. 

“It’s just, you’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

“Dude, I already think you’re crazy.” Darwin said. Past Gumball giggled, he did have a point. 

“Ok. You ever get the feeling that something is just...off? That there’s something deeply wrong with the world we live in? Like it’s not quite….solid?” Well, that sure wasn’t what Darwin was expecting him to say, but, strange as it was, he knew exactly what he was talking about, so he nodded. This surprised Past Gumball, he wasn’t expecting him to understand, although thinking about it further, why wouldn’t he? Whenever he was on an adventure Darwin was right by his side. He saw just as much weird stuff as he did, of course he would also have his suspicions. “Well, I have this theory about why that is, but I didn’t think it was actually true because it was so crazy, but based on what the future version of me said I’m starting to think that maybe….maybe it is.”

“Gumball, what is it?” Darwin asked, concerned. Past Gumball took a deep breath before saying what he was about to say. 

“After one of our adventures, I can’t remember exactly which, I thought that what had happened seemed a lot like something I saw on TV once. I waved it off, life imitates media sometimes. But then it kept happening. And weird little things kept popping up. Like the clock that showed up that we used to time travel, or when we were vegging out and the couch somehow became flat. It started to add up and I started getting these…..thoughts. Like maybe it wasn’t just a coincidence that I saw all this on TV. That maybe all these things that I thought were just coincidences weren’t coincidences at all. But I told myself it wasn’t possible, that my brain was just playing tricks on me, that I was starting to sound like Mr. Small. So I put it out of my mind. Then that future me showed up and said that the clock was running out, that nothing lasts forever on television, and that’s when I knew it was true.” 

“What are you saying Gumball? That our whole lives are just a…….TV show?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Past Gumball told him. He braced himself for Darwin’s reaction. He fully expected that he wouldn’t believe him, after all, he didn’t believe it himself. For a while Darwin didn’t react. He just sat there, frozen, trying to take everything in. Eventually tears started to stream down his face, making Past Gumball’s heart sink. “I’m really sorry buddy, I didn’t mean to upset you.” 

“It’s not your fault. I asked you to tell me.” Darwin told him. “It’s just….a lot.” 

“Yeah, I know.” Past Gumball said. “So, you believe me? Just like that?” 

“I don’t know what I believe.” Darwin insisted. “But I have to admit, it makes sense. It makes way too much sense, and I know you wouldn’t lie about something like this. You’re not the only one who had questions about this world Gumball. I saw things too. I just never thought it would lead to  _ this. _ ” Past Gumball nodded. He could understand that. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew what you were going to say. You would’ve said that I was crazy, and I would’ve agreed with you! You have to understand, I never thought it was really true. I thought I was just going nuts, or I was making something out of nothing. I didn’t think it was real! I never thought people would get hurt!”

“I know you didn’t.” Darwin told him. Yes, Gumball could be selfish sometimes, but ignoring something that could hurt people wasn’t his M.O. When he told Gumball that he knew that he cared about other people, he meant it. “But I don’t understand, how would people get hurt from this? Other than emotionally by finding out.” 

“That other Gumball, he was talking about the end of the world. If I’m right, and this is a TV show, what do you think happens when we get cancelled?” Past Gumball asked. Darwin went pale as he started to take in the implications of what this all meant. That was something he didn’t think of. 

“We have to go talk to him. Now.” Darwin said. Past Gumball nodded as they both stood up and went to go find him. Hopefully he was still here and didn’t just time travel away, trying to come up with another plan. Luckily, he didn’t, and they found him outside of the warehouse just as he and Rob finished up their conversation. Gumball saw that the past versions of himself and Darwin were running towards him and stood up.

“Look, guys. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that stuff. I don’t know-” He started to apologize, but he was cut off when Darwin almost tackled him in a hug. He was taken by surprise, as the last time he saw him he had basically told him to leave them alone. Still, he reflexively sank into the hug, letting a few tears out. He had no idea how much he needed that until that moment. 

“Gumball, my Gumball anyways, told me what happened. Is all of that true? Are our lives just a TV show? Did you really go through cancellation like he thought?” More tears escaped from Gumball’s eyes as he nodded. 

“It’s true, I did. I’m sorry buddy, I know that news is hard to deal with.”

“No,  _ I’m  _ sorry! I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through something like that. No wonder you acted the way you did.” 

“I still shouldn’t have said those things. I took it way too far.” Gumball broke the hug and turned to address his other self. “I’m really sorry other me. I was wrong to say all that. You’re not selfish,  _ I’m _ not selfish. I think I just had some things I needed to work out and I took it out on you. You couldn’t have known about all of this.” Past Gumball shook his head. 

“No, I could have, and I did. You were right, a part of me did know about all of this and I subconsciously ignored it. I know I can be kind of selfish sometimes but I really didn’t mean to be. I didn’t think anyone was gonna get hurt from this.”

“I know.” Gumball told him. “I was you, remember?” 

“So, what happened? I gathered that the show got canceled but, how did it happen? Did people die? Did we all just cease to exist?” Past Gumball asked. 

“It was awful. All of Elmore just started falling apart and it got sucked into this static dimension. Within a few minutes it was gone, there was nothing left, and I couldn’t find anyone.” Gumball confessed. Past Gumball and Darwin looked at him with sympathy in their eyes. That did sound awful, no wonder it was still affecting him. 

“What about Future Darwin? Why isn’t he with you? Did something happen to him? To me?” Darwin asked nervously. 

“Darwin’s ok.” Gumball reassured him. “He wasn’t able to come with me, but he’s fine. He’s not hurt or anything.” Darwin gave a sigh of relief after hearing that, but he still worried. Sure, his future counterpart wasn’t hurt, but based on what the Future Gumball had said, he was still trapped in a static wasteland, along with everyone and everything he loved. Unless Gumball could stop it, that is. He had some serious doubts that he could pull it off, it seemed impossible, but this was Gumball Watterson they were talking about here, he had seen him do impossible things on a daily basis. If anyone could do it, it was him. 

“And the remote?” Darwin asked. “Where did you get that?” 

“I found it in the static, it came from The Awesome Store.” Gumball explained, summing up the story as succinctly as he could. Gumball decided not to tell him the whole story behind the remote, not now anyways, he would tell him once everything was resolved, _ if _ everything was resolved, that is. Darwin nodded in understanding. 

“So, why come here? Why stop me from erasing Rob?” Past Gumball asked. 

“A couple reasons. Mostly I just kinda felt bad, I overheard what was going on and I couldn’t just let it happen again, but also erasing Rob triggered a whole chain of events that led to this. Or, at least, I thought it did, turns out that stopping Banana Barbara from painting something doesn’t necessarily stop that thing from happening. Not when it comes to her future-painting powers anyways, it’s hard to explain.” Gumball said.

“Ok, I can understand why you would save him, but why team up with him? Isn’t he our enemy?” Past Gumball asked. 

“Because, he knows too.” Gumball explained. “He’s known for a long time, he’s been trying to save us for weeks. I figured that with more heads working together we would have a better chance of saving Elmore.” He didn’t want to get into the whole story about The Void because 1, that would require a whole host of explanations he didn’t want to get into, and, 2, it wasn’t his story to tell, it was Rob’s. Both Past Gumball and Darwin turned to look at Rob, who had been standing there the whole time, he just didn’t want to get involved in the conversation. 

“Is that true?” Past Gumball asked him. “Did you really know this whole time? Were you really trying to save us?” 

“Yeah, I was.” Rob admitted. “And you would know that if you had listened to what I had to say instead of trying to erase-”

“Dude! Rob! Not the time!” Gumball cut in. Turning to his past counterpart he said, “sorry about that, he’s still kinda bitter about what happened.” 

“I am not bitter.” Rob said, bitterly. 

“Well, I’m sorry.” Past Gumball said. It was a begrudging apology, but Rob took it. “But why kidnap Banana Barbara?” 

“I was trying to use her future painting powers to see if there was any way we could stop the apocalypse. But, clearly, that didn’t work.” Past Gumball nodded, that actually made a lot of sense. 

“Nice plan, I wouldn’t have thought of that.” 

“Actually, you did.” Gumball pointed out. “That’s kinda why I’m here. I thought that maybe painting over her static paintings would work, bring Elmore back to normal, but that didn’t do anything either. I need to think of a new plan, and fast.” 

“Well, I know you, you always come up with a plan.” Darwin reassured him. Gumball gave a small smile. 

“You know, you can come with us, if you want. Help save the world?” Gumball offered. Darwin thought it over, but ultimately decided against it. 

“I think I need to stay here.” He said. “I should probably stick with this Gumball, I can’t just leave him behind, you can understand that, right?” Gumball nodded. He didn’t like it, but he could understand it. Darwin had always been loyal to a fault, so it made sense that he would want to stay with the Gumball he started with. “And who knows, maybe we can try and help fix things before it all goes south. How long until that happens again?” 

“About a month.” Gumball admitted. Past Gumball and Darwin both gave each other nervous looks. A month was not a long time. “Still want to stay?” he asked. Darwin swallowed a lump in his throat, but still nodded. 

“If a month is all we have, then we should probably let people know. Give them a chance to fight back.” 

“They probably won’t believe you.” Gumball pointed out. 

“They might not. But we should at least give them a chance.” 

“But what if I go back in time and fix things earlier? Then you won’t even remember any of this.”

“Then it won’t matter one way or the other, right?” Darwin pointed out. Gumball had to agree that it made sense, but he still got a little teary eyed anyways. He had hoped that Darwin would come along. He was getting to know Rob better and he wasn’t that bad, but nothing could compare to his best friend. Darwin noticed this and said, “hey, don’t cry. I’ll see you in the future, right? I know that you can do this. I believe in you.” Gumball smiled and wiped his tears, while Darwin gave him another hug for encouragement before he left. Gumball would’ve thought that the second time saying goodbye would be easier, but he thought wrong. He was still no closer to stopping the apocalypse than he was before, this whole side trip was a complete waste of time. He then looked over at Rob, well, maybe it wasn’t a  _ complete _ waste of time. That little pep talk of his certainly helped. Rob was right, he could still pull this off. He was Gumball Watterson after all, he could find his way out of pretty much anything. 


	8. Binge-Watch

“So, what’s the plan?” Rob asked while looking around. It seemed that Gumball had taken them to the living room of his house. He recognized it from the brief time he had stayed in their basement. He didn’t know what time Gumball had brought them to, and Gumball didn’t know either. He just pressed play when he saw his living room.

“There is no plan, I went here so I could try and come up with one. So if you have any ideas I'd love to hear them.”

Rob quickly tried to think of something but couldn’t come up with anything, except for his original plan of transforming everyone and leaving but he knew that Gumball was pretty resistant to that idea so he didn’t bring it up. 

“Are you sure this is the best place to think? What if one of your siblings or someone comes in here and sees me? How will you explain that?”

“They won’t, the whole world is paused right now except for us. I don’t want to run into my past self again. That was kinda intense.” 

“Just a little,” Rob said. Gumball chuckled a bit. 

“By the way, how did you know about Gargoroth and Alan and stuff?” he asked. “Back at the warehouse, when you were telling me how I was kind of a jerk? The Gargoroth thing was all over town so it didn’t seem that weird you knew about that, but Alan….I didn’t think you even met him.” 

“Well, I saw him at Elmore Jr. High before The Void, but that’s not how I knew about it,” Rob confessed. Oh man, how could he tell Gumball that he had watched the show without it sounding creepy? “You see, I was doing some…..research when I heard that the show was cancelled so I could see how it got to that point…..” 

“Wait a minute, you can watch the show?!” Gumball interrupted. 

“Yeah…..” 

“Dude! Why didn’t you say so earlier? This way we can look through the footage to see if there's anything that can help!” Plus, he was just curious to see it, but he didn’t tell Rob that part. 

“Why? Don’t you remember everything that happened?” Rob asked. Gumball rolled his eyes. 

“Memory is subjective. Maybe the camera picked up something that I missed, or forgot about. It’s not like my memory is photographic.” Rob couldn’t argue with that, he did have a point. 

“Are you sure you want to do this? I know it can be weird watching yourself on TV, especially if you didn’t know you were being filmed.”

“Positive,” Gumball said. “The fate of the world might depend on it!”  _ Ok, dial it back there Gumball _ , he told himself.  _ You might be going a little overboard trying to convince him. You mostly just want to watch it out of curiosity, after all.  _ Rob could see right through him, but he decided to turn the show on anyways. Even if that wasn’t the main reason he was doing it, it was still a good idea. Maybe there was something in the background that they missed, or something in the foreground that they needed reminding of. It couldn’t hurt to at least check. 

“Ok, what episode do you want to start with?”

“We can’t just watch the whole thing?” Gumball asked. 

“There are 240 episodes, so I doubt it,” Rob pointed out. Gumball went pale, that was a lot of episodes. Way more than he had anticipated. 

“Ok, so we definitely can’t watch all of it. Not in one sitting,” Gumball agreed. “You’ve seen it, you pick the episodes you think are most important, if we haven’t found anything from them we’ll look at some more filler ones.” Rob nodded. That did make sense. Rob looked through the episode descriptions and picked out the ones he thought would be most useful, including but not limited to:  _ The Job, The Finale, The Void, The Nobody, The Nemesis, The Signal, The Bus, The Disaster, The Rerun,  _ and  _ The Vegging.  _ Gumball made a mental note to watch “The Origins” and “The Shell” later on his own time, those were some memories he didn’t mind revisiting. He went to turn on the TV but no matter how many times he pressed the power button it wouldn’t turn on. 

“Oh, right. The world is paused, no electricity,” Gumball realized. “I wonder if I touch the TV and press play on the remote…” he tried it and it worked, the TV sprung to life. “Yes!” Gumball cheered. Rob went over to the TV and did something to make sure that they could get the show in their reality, Gumball wasn’t sure what. But it didn’t take too long and soon enough it was ready to play. Gumball took a deep breath before starting it. This was it, no going back now. Time to see what embarrassing moments of his life were broadcast nationwide. He pushed his nerves aside and pressed play. The opening theme started playing and the tune was somehow familiar to him despite never having heard it before. The episode started proper and Gumball cringed a bit when he heard himself talk. Turns out Rob was right, watching yourself on TV was pretty weird. It was supremely bizarre to watch his own life being played back to him, and he found himself unconsciously mouthing his dialogue with the Gumball on the screen. But his curiosity overcame the weirdness and he kept watching. Besides, he kinda had to, if there was something that could help he had to find it. Rob saw Gumball squirming but he didn’t really know what to do about it. Gumball didn’t ask to turn the show off or anything, so he just kind of left it alone. It got a little easier as it went on, but it was still pretty strange. Gumball sort of wished that Rob wasn’t here to see all of this, as some of it was kind of personal. Millions of strangers seeing it was bad enough but someone who knew him personally seeing it just seemed worse to him somehow. Some of the memories were good though, and Gumball smiled a bit as he reminisced. Gumball and Rob just sat in silence for a while, staring at the screen, until Rob started chuckling at one of Gumball on screen’s one liners. Gumball was so surprised that he paused the video.

“Wait, did you just laugh? At one of  _ my  _ jokes?” Gumball asked gleefully. Rob sighed. 

“Maybe,” he said in a way that just meant “yes, but I don’t want to admit it.”, “I mean, you can be funny sometimes,” Rob said. It was a grudging compliment, but Gumball took it. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before, I didn’t know your face was capable of doing that,” Gumball joked. 

“You’ve seen me smile,” Rob insisted. 

“Sinister smiles don’t count.”

“Come on, I’m not that humorless, am I?” 

“Uh, yeah, you kinda are. I’ve never seen you smile, or laugh, or crack a joke. I once fought with you on the wing of a plane and you claimed that “this wasn’t supposed to be fun.” It’s like you don’t even know what fun is.” 

“Or maybe you just have an insane idea of fun,” Rob countered. “Most people would be fearing for their lives in that position.” 

“Oh come on, you can’t tell me that you didn’t have fun up there,” Gumball said with a pointed look in his direction. 

“Fine, that was kinda fun,” Rob admitted. Gumball smiled victoriously. 

“I knew it,” he said. “So what  _ do _ you normally do for fun? Besides trying to destroy me?” Rob had to think about that one for a little bit. 

“Huh, I guess I really don’t do much for fun these days,” Rob realized. “I like to read, books are pretty easy to come by and they don’t cost much.”

“Yawn,” Gumball said. “What about before The Void? What did you like to do then?” 

“You know, normal kid things. Go online, play video games, watch TV. I don’t really do that last one anymore. Kind of a painful reminder of the life I’m stuck in.” 

“I mean, even with everything going on I can’t imagine giving up my favorite TV shows, but continue.” 

“Well, I used to really like cooking. That definitely helped when I had to start making meals on my own.” Gumball raised an eyebrow at this.

“Really? You can cook?” 

“Yeah,” Rob replied. “Before the whole Void thing, everything was pretty mundane. Actually I had always used to want to go on an adventure with you.”

“Really?” He was surprised by this, most people avoided him because of his big adventures. A few people wanted to be a part of them, like Sarah, Tobias, and Clayton, but they were in the minority. “Well, you got your wish, we’re definitely on one now, though it’s a lot more dangerous than I’m used to.” 

“Really? This?” Rob asked, gesturing around the very safe living room. 

“Well, yeah, There are a lot of actual lives at stake here. I think before I kind of subconsciously knew that I couldn’t get seriously injured.” Gumball sat with that for a minute before attempting to shake it off. “Well, if we all survive this, I’ll try and teach you what real fun looks like, deal?” He said, while reaching out for a handshake. 

“I shudder to think of what your idea of “real fun” is,” Rob replied. 

“It won’t be as crazy as this, I promise.” 

“Ok, deal,” Rob said, while returning the handshake. 

“Although, if we do end up surviving this then I am taking a break. A long one,” Gumball said. Rob chuckled a bit at this. 

“Yeah, me too,” He replied. “I am going to retire from villany forever.”

“I think you already did,” Gumball pointed out. “You’re helping  _ me _ after all.”

“Well, I can’t help much if we’re just sitting here talking.” He put the show back on. Gumball shrugged and turned back to the screen. They kept watching in silence, but Gumball noticed that Rob had started laughing at more of the jokes now. He suspected that he had been holding back before. It was nice to hear. 

“Oh man, these episodes are so strange to watch now,” Gumball complained, referring to season one. “Everyone looks so  _ weird _ !”

“Yeah, and you didn’t act much like you do now,” Rob pointed out, as the Gumball on the screen did something immensly dumb. The Gumball watching put his head in his hands, he couldn’t believe that he used to be so  _ stupid _ . Yeah, he wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed now, but at least he had some common sense. And none of his now trademark quick wit was on display here.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Gumball said through his hands. 

“Hey, it’s not just you, I mean, look at me,” he said, pointing at his season one self in the background. 

“That’s you?!” Gumball asked in surprise. He paused the video in order to get a better look at the Rob on the screen. He hardly looked anything like he did now, the only similarities that he could see were his one eye, his skinny body and his big head. “Wow, that void really did a number on you huh?” Rob cringed and Gumball just realized how insensitive he sounded. “Sorry.” 

“No, you’re right, it really did,” Rob admitted. Gumball looked at him in sympathy. 

“Well, if it helps, I like your new look,” Gumball told him. Rob just shrugged. He knew he probably fit in better in the wacky world of Elmore looking like this then he did before, but that wasn’t much of a comfort to him. “Does it hurt at all? The static?” Gumball asked. 

“Not really,” Rob said. “But sometimes, when I get especially glitchy, I get that pins and needles feeling when your foot falls asleep, but over my whole body.” Gumball grimaced, that sounded pretty awful. Gumball scooted over closer to Rob and gave him a hug. Rob jumped a bit, he was not expecting that and he still wasn’t used to getting hugs. 

“I know I already said I was sorry, but I am. I’m sorry,” Gumball said. Rob’s static darkened from embarrassment and Gumball pulled away like he’d been burned, or like he’d been...shocked. “Ow!” Gumball said, shaking his hand until the shocking feeling went away. 

“Sorry about that. That happens sometimes when I touch people, or when people touch me. I can’t control it,” Rob told him. Gumball grabbed Rob’s hand in response. 

“Well, you’ve done a lot worse to me than just a little electric shock,” Gumball said, smiling so that Rob knew there were no hard feelings. “And I’ve always bounced back.” 

“That’s true,” Rob admitted. The boys sat there for a moment, until Gumball broke the silence by unpausing the video and letting the episode continue. 

“Oh come on Gumball, how on earth could you misinterpret that!” Gumball shouted at the screen. Rob looked at him, amused. 

“You know he can’t hear you, right?” 

“I know, but it’s cathartic,” Gumball said. They kept watching and Gumball kept adding a bit of his commentary throughout. That is, until they got to the episode “The Void.” Gumball sat up straight and watched it intensely. However weird it was to watch the other episodes, it was nothing compared to this, as he was watching himself do things that he had no memory of doing. “There I am!” Rob pointed out when he came on screen. “See?”

“Yep, you’re totally there, and we totally left you,” Gumball admitted apologetically. “Look, I’m really sorry. I still don’t remember this happening so I don’t have an explanation to give, but it clearly did happen so….yeah. I must not have seen you or heard you.” 

“Huh, I was hoping that showing you this would trigger your memories to come back, kind of like what happened with me. But I guess not.” 

“Sorry, no,” Gumball told him. “I’m seeing it happen but I still don’t remember doing any of this, even though I clearly did.”

“Well, that’s going to happen again when we get to The Disaster and The Rerun.” 

“What? Oh, right, the remote incident. I can’t say I’m not curious to see that.” 

“I’m not,” Rob said. “I did a lot of bad things during that time. Things that I’m ashamed of now, and I don’t know how you’re going to look at me after I show you.” 

“Well, if what you told me about it is true, then I already forgave you once,” Gumball pointed out. Rob nodded, that was true. “I don’t see why I wouldn’t do the same thing again.” 

“Just wait until you see it,” Rob warned. The rest of the episode played out until it got to the end, when the Gumball on screen asked “What were we talking about again?” 

“See, I remember  _ that _ . I remember being in Mr. Small’s van with no idea how I got there. This certainly fills in a lot of gaps.” 

“And you didn’t question it? You didn’t wonder why you were just randomly in a teacher’s van?” 

“Well, of course I questioned it, but I couldn’t remember anything. I even asked Mr. Small about it but he didn’t remember either. So I knew it was weird, I just didn’t know it was  _ this  _ weird.” 

“And you weren’t more concerned that your memories were missing?” 

“No, I guess not,” Gumball realized. “You remember how I had that big rant earlier about how I was in denial? That might have had something to do with it. That or it’s one of The Void’s crazy powers.” The episode ended and Rob put on “The Nobody” next. They watched the episode for a couple minutes until Gumball said, “You know, I meant to ask you, why did you take my sister’s Daisy the Donkey doll? Little girly for you, don’t you think?” 

“It got kind of scary in the basement at night, it helped me fall asleep,” Rob said. That shut Gumball up real quick. He felt bad for teasing him now. 

“Well, that might have been your undoing. Anais loves that thing, she once had me take on a T-Rex in order to get it back.”

“Yikes. I think that was an episode, actually.” 

“I’m not surprised, a T-rex chase is bound to be entertaining,” Gumball commented. The episode played out and Gumball and Rob both cringed and looked away when his backstory was revealed. Gumball out of shame, and Rob because it was just too painful for him. They watched a few more episodes in silence until they got to the one that Rob had been dreading, “The Disaster”. Gumball took his hand in an attempt to make him feel better. “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” he said. 

“No, it’s probably worse,” Rob told him, but he turned the episode on anyway. It opened with the Watterson family singing along to a tune that Gumball now recognized as the closing credits theme. The scene changed and it focused on Rob buying the remote from The Awesome Store. Gumball’s ears pricked up and he watched intently. 

“Whoa. Did you just straight up delete that guy?!” Gumball asked. 

“Yeah, I did,” Rob admitted. Gumball looked at him, shocked. “Oh like you haven’t done something similar,” he said, referring to the time that he erased him from existence. 

“Technically that was Banana Joe, not me,” Gumball pointed out.

“You erased part of me, that means it was partly your fault.”

“But I went back in time and changed it, so I didn’t do it anymore.” 

“Neither did I,” Rob countered. “It didn’t happen, remember? Or, I guess you can’t remember.” Gumball rolled his eyes and he kept watching. 

“Why did you get rid of the Dr. Wrecker voice? I liked that voice,” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s good for monologuing about evil plans but not so much when you’re trying to do something normal like go to the grocery store. It makes everything you say sound sinister.” Gumball tried to imagine Rob with that voice asking the grocery cashier something and giggled a little, he did have a point. They kept watching the episode, nothing too bad had happened yet, and Gumball was starting to wonder what the big deal was when it got to the part with the evil subtitles. Seeing Darwin cry caused Gumball to get a little misty eyed.

“Kinda harsh, don’t you think?” Gumball said, referring to the content of said subtitles. 

“Well, I wanted him to stop trusting you,” Rob explained. “I told you that I wasn’t proud of my actions. This isn’t even as bad as it gets.” Gumball nodded. He remembered what Rob had told him. People died, even if it was only temporarily. “Do you want to stop watching?” 

“No,” Gumball replied. “I have to know what happens. Even if it didn’t technically happen, it still matters, you know?” Rob nodded, he did know, he knew very well. Reluctantly he pressed the play button and let the episode continue. Gumball gasped when Penny fell off of the ledge, and breathed a sigh of relief when Rob paused it before she could hit the ground. Even at his worst, Rob couldn’t let her die. They got to Rob’s little monologue and Gumball teared up again. 

“You  _ did _ try to tell me,” he whispered. “You tried to tell me and I didn’t listen.” 

“Well, it is hard to believe,” Rob told him. “I was wrong to blame you anyways, it’s not your fault that we’re cartoon characters, you’re just a pawn in this game like everyone else.” Gumball shook his head. 

“No, we’re more than that. _ You’re  _ more than that.” 

“You still believe that? Even after everything?”

“I do,” Gumball responded. “And I know that you do too. You said so yourself, at the warehouse, that maybe it was more than just writing.” Rob didn’t have a comeback for that and eventually Gumball turned back to the TV. The fight choreography was impressive, he had to admit. “The Disaster” had ended and they started watching “The Rerun”. Gumball gasped again when he saw his parents turned into babies. When Anais disappeared he started getting a little teary eyed, but when he saw Darwin suffocate he couldn’t hold back the tears any more and he started crying. He was starting to regret watching this now. This was the worst thing he had seen on this show, bar none. No amount of embarrassing moments could ever compare to this. Rob kinda awkwardly patted Gumball on the shoulder as he looked away, ashamed. He paused the episode until Gumball had composed himself enough to keep going. 

“Sorry, I know he comes back and everything it’s just…...this is really hard to watch,” Gumball said as he wiped the tears off his sweater. 

“I know,” Rob told him. “I took it way too far. I’m sorry.” 

“You didn’t really kill him though, I did,” Gumball pointed out. Rob looked at him, puzzled. “I was the one who accidentally pushed the rewind button, de-aging my parents which led to this whole mess. It was my fault.” Rob considered this. He did have a point, he  _ was _ the one who accidentally pushed the button when trying to wrestle the remote away from him. 

“But I could’ve saved him and I didn’t,” Rob responded. “And then I rubbed it in your face.” Gumball nodded. That was true, and Rob didn’t have the justification of it being an accident like he did. 

“Maybe it was both our faults then,” Gumball eventually said. Rob nodded and started the episode again. Gumball watched the rest of it wide-eyed. “No, Gumball, don’t put him back into The Void you idiot!” he shouted at the screen. Unlike the other times he did it there was no playful edge to his voice. He hated watching himself do that. Luckily, the Gumball on screen came to his senses and went in after him. When Rob on screen said that he belonged in The Void Gumball squeezed the Rob watching’s hand in reassurance. He didn’t let go of his hand for the rest of the episode as things got more and more intense. He was holding it so hard it was actually starting to hurt, but Rob didn’t ask him to let go, he figured he needed this. Besides, he kinda deserved it. Gumball didn’t say a word for the rest of the episode, nor immediately afterwards, he just let go of Rob’s hand. 

“So……” Rob started to say, the silence was killing him. 

“I said it before and I’ll say it again,” Gumball interrupted. “I don’t hate you for this. I’m not even that mad. You gave up a lot to fix it. Maybe I would feel differently if I actually remembered this instead of just watching us do it on TV, but based on how I acted in the episode I don’t think so. Besides, I kinda know why you did it now.” 

“That still doesn’t excuse what I did.” 

“No, I know. But you realized you made a mistake and you fixed it.” Gumball pulled out the remote from his pocket and gave it a once over. “But I might want to be a little more careful with this thing in the future. It’s crazy dangerous. Honestly, I can’t believe that stupid store actually sells things like this in the first-” Gumball stopped suddenly, eyes wide. “That’s it! I know where to go next!” 

“What?”

“Think about it, what’s the place that keeps showing up whenever it’s convenient for the plot? What’s the place that sells reality altering items on the regular? What’s the place we got the remote that’s making this whole rescue mission possible in the first place?” Rob’s eye widened as he figured it out. Of course! Why didn’t he think of that before? It was staring them in the face the whole time!

“The Awesome Store.” 


	9. The Awesome Store

Gumball and Rob both ran out of the house and made a beeline for the mall parking lot, where The Awesome Store was usually located, with Gumball unpausing the world on the way. He couldn’t exactly interrogate The Awesome Store guy if he was frozen. They had spotted the van and Gumball was just about to rush in there when Rob took his hand to hold him back. 

“Hold on. So what’s the plan here?”

“We go inside and ask him what he knows, where he gets all these reality warping items, that kind of thing,” Gumball explained. He kinda thought that was obvious from the get-go. 

“No, I got that,” Rob clarified. “But what if he won’t tell us? He has no reason to trust two random kids with this information.” Gumball paused. He didn’t really think about that. 

“Well, we do have this remote. We could maybe make him tell us.” Rob nodded, he could see how that would work. 

“Yeah, we could threaten to delete him if he doesn’t tell us everything!” Rob said. Gumball gave him a strange look. 

“I was thinking more along the lines of convincing him to tell us everything by showing him the apocalypse in the near future, but I guess that works too,” he said. They both went up to the van and knocked on the door. 

“Come in! Come in! Look around, see if there’s anything you like,” The Awesome Store guy said in his best salesperson voice. They walked in and Gumball was in awe of just how much stuff was crammed in there, some of it things that he had never seen before. He had never really seen the inside of it when it was open so he didn’t know what to expect. He quickly shook off the feeling and focused on what he came there to do. 

“We’re not here to buy anything, we’re here for information,” Gumball said. He couldn’t see anything of the guy inside the van, except for his big, piercing eyes, so that was a little intimidating. Still, he held his ground. 

“That’s an...interesting request. Especially considering I don’t really know you,” the shopkeeper replied. 

“You know me,” Rob told him. “You were the one who sold me the universal remote.” 

“This one, to be precise,” Gumball said, holding it up for proof. 

“Yes, I remember that now. Though I seem to recall you smashing it right afterwards, so I’m not quite sure how you have it now,” The shopkeeper replied, his gaze shifted and focused on Gumball. “And what about your little friend here?”

“My name is Gumball. Gumball Watterson.” 

“Watterson?” The shopkeeper repeated.

“Yes…?” Gumball affirmed tentatively. He knew he and his family had a bit of a bad reputation around town, but he wouldn’t do anything like refuse to talk to him because of that, would he? 

“Ah! I knew that last name sounded familiar. Your father is one of my best customers.” 

“Yes! He is!” Gumball said, lighting up. This was good, he could use this to get him on their side. “So will you help us?”

“That depends on what kind of information you’re looking for.” Gumball gave Rob a look. How much should they reveal to this guy? If he had items that could warp reality, it was possible he knew about the TV show. Of course, it was also totally possible that he had no idea and was ignorant about most of the stuff he was selling. They wordlessly decided to tread carefully, figure out what he knew without playing their own hand.

“All of these items, they have magical powers, a lot of them can change reality. Where are you getting all of these things?” 

“Can’t tell you that I’m afraid. Wouldn’t be good business practice if I spilled all my secrets to the masses. Gotta stay relevant in the current market, you know.” 

“We’re kids, you really think we’re asking this for business reasons?” Gumball asked. The shopkeeper didn’t say anything. He had to admit that they had a point, but he still wasn’t budging. “It’s really important that I figure this out, the whole world could be at stake!” The shopkeeper stayed silent but he squinted his eyes at the duo, indicating disbelief. Rob furrowed his brow and opened his mouth to threaten him until Gumball held up his hand to stop him. “Not yet dude,” Gumball told him. He wasn’t ready to jump straight into threatening him yet, he wanted to try a more honest option first. If he still didn’t listen after that, all bets were off. Gumball sighed and pulled out the remote again. “You know this remote? I’m from the future and I’ve been using this remote to go back in time and prevent a catastrophe that could lead to the end of the world. I wasn’t lying when I said that the whole world could be at stake. I can prove it to you.” Gumball turned the remote towards a TV that was in the van and clicked fast forward. On the TV it showed Elmore eaten up by static. “If you don’t help us this could be your future. You have items that can change reality, and reality needs to change. So I’m going to need to know what you know about all of this. If we don’t do something a lot of people are going to die, and I don’t intend on leaving here until I get the information I came for.” The shopkeeper's eyes widened as he stared at the TV screen. That static...it almost looked like...it couldn’t be. 

“Alright, I’ll tell you, but none of what I’m about to say leaves this van, got it?” 

“Got it,” Gumball and Rob agreed. The shopkeeper looked around and lowered his voice so that no one else could hear him. 

“Have you ever found anything….strange about this world? Things happening that you can’t quite explain, that sort of thing?” Gumball and Rob looked at each other again, was he hinting at what they thought he was hinting at? 

“Yeah, we have. Things that are a little...cartoony maybe?” Gumball said. 

“Yes, exactly.” 

“Wait a minute,” Rob cut in. “You mean to tell me that you knew about the TV show this whole time?” 

“I was trying to be subtle about it, but yes. In my line of work, you kinda have to,” The shopkeeper said. That wasn’t really much of an explanation, Rob noted, but that wasn’t his biggest concern at the moment. 

“Then why didn’t  _ you  _ do anything? Why didn’t  _ you _ try to stop the apocalypse instead of leaving it up to us?”

“Hey, I had no idea  _ that _ was going to happen,” He said, gesturing at the TV screen. “I assumed someone would have told me about something that drastic, but I guess I was wrong.” The shopkeeper then muttered something about “upper management” and how “they never tell him anything anymore.” Both Gumball and Rob thought he was acting rather blase about the end of the world, but without seeing his facial expression, it was kinda hard to tell how he felt. “Look, I don’t know if I can help you, but I think I know someone who can,” he explained. “I get all of this stuff through a “special supplier”, you plead your case with him and maybe he can give you something that can help. But there’s a catch, in order to get to him, you’ve got to get through to the other side.” Rob’s eye widened in shock while Gumball just looked confused. He knew that “the other side” was some sort of euphemism for something, but he also knew that he probably wasn’t referring to the afterlife in this situation.

“But that’s impossible! You can’t just  _ go _ to the other side, not as we are! If you could I would’ve tried that ages ago.” Rob shouted.

“Well, you’re partly right. You can’t just go, there’s a whole process to it, a special journey you have to take, that kind of thing. Plus, there’s a ripple effect when you get there. If you’re not back within an hour you cease to exist entirely, but it looks like that’s going to happen whether you go or not. So what do you have to lose really?” 

“And you risk that regularly just to sell your merchandise?” Gumball asked in disbelief. Man, and he thought he was a thrillseeker. 

“Selling my merchandise is all I was created to do kid,” The shopkeeper retorted. Rob nodded in sympathy. Gumball still wasn’t convinced. This guy had a track record of his merchandise causing havoc, what if this was something similar? What if he was evil? He certainly looked pretty menacing. This could very well be a trap. 

“Why should we trust you?” 

“Why wouldn’t you?” 

“Well, let’s see,” Gumball said. “Your refrigerator? Trapped my dad. The turtle? Tried to kill us. The remote? Actually did kill some of us. The notebook? Almost destroyed the town. The console? Ok, that one was actually pretty awesome, I’ll give you that.” 

“What about the goldfish?”

“The goldfish…?” Gumball asked curiously. He didn’t remember any goldfish. The only goldfish he knew was...oh,  _ oh. _ Ok, that made a strange amount of sense, but he didn’t have time to really process that revelation, so he kind of shook it from his mind. He did wish that Darwin was here with them though, if he knew the guy he could’ve used that as leverage. “You don’t get to take credit for Darwin, he’s a person, not an object.”  _ Darwin, so that was his name now,  _ The storekeeper thought. He wanted to ask more about how he was doing now, but he could tell that Gumball was agitated and this wouldn’t be the best time. 

“Alright, but consider this,  _ you _ came to  _ me _ , remember? Do you really have any choice right now  _ but _ to trust me?” Gumball sighed, he had to admit, he had a point. It looked like he had no choice but to go to this “other side”, despite how dangerous it seemed. If it was a trap, well, they had the remote. They could get out of it. Probably. 

“Alright fine, but you’re coming with us,” Gumball said. “You’re the only one who knows how to get there, and if there’s some kind of process to this then I don’t want to mess it up.” The shopkeeper nodded, forgetting for a moment that they couldn’t see him. He figured he would have to come along, the journey would almost certainly kill them without him or his van, or worse...

“Fine, but it’s going to be a pretty bumpy ride, so I would suggest strapping in.” 


	10. Journey To The Center Of The Void

The journey through Elmore actually started out pretty uneventfully, and Gumball was starting to wonder what the shopkeeper was going on about earlier, he’d done more dangerous things daily. Maybe “the other side” just meant “the other side of town” and he was making a big deal over nothing. He kept thinking that until the van went down an alleyway and stopped at a brick wall. 

“Um, dude? There’s nothing here. This is a dead end,” Gumball said, confused. 

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” The shopkeeper said with a smirk. He got out a strange looking gadget and pressed a button. Suddenly, the brick wall disappeared, replaced with a hole filled with static. Both Gumball and Rob’s stomachs dropped. They knew what this was, by now they had seen it many times over. 

“Oh man, we’re going to have to go in there, aren’t we?” Gumball said. A sense of dread swept through his body. Other than the few minutes after the apocalypse, his only memories of The Void were from a TV screen, but something in him still wanted to stay away. If it was due to subconscious memories or simply from watching what it was capable of, he didn’t know. What he did know was that he wanted nothing to do with it. 

“Yup, the only way to get to the other side is to go through The Void,” the shopkeeper informed them. Gumball sighed heavily. As much as he didn’t want to he knew he had to go through, for Elmore. Besides, he went in and out twice already and he was fine, he could do it again...right? “Alright, let’s get this over with,” he said. He glanced over at Rob and saw that he had gone pale and was frozen in fear. “Rob? You ok?” 

“I-I can’t,” he stuttered. “I can’t do it, I can’t go back there.” Gumball’s ears dropped and he looked at Rob sympathetically. Of course he was freaking out. He should’ve known how badly this would affect him. 

“Rob…” Gumball started to say before Rob cut him off. 

“No, I know what you’re going to say and I can’t-”

“Ok,” Gumball interrupted. Rob stopped short and looked at Gumball, shocked. 

“What?” Rob said, surprised. He wasn’t actually expecting him to let him off the hook like that. 

“Ok, if you really can’t handle going in there, I’m not going to make you,” Gumball told him. “After seeing some of what you had to go through I get why you wouldn’t want to go back.”

“But….I can’t just let you go in there alone,” Rob protested, surprising even himself by how much he cared. If he let Gumball go into The Void and something happened to him in there...he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. 

“Yes, you can,” Gumball insisted. “With your history you’re more at risk than I am and I am not going to let you get trapped in there again!” Rob was surprised yet again by this response. It looked like Gumball cared a lot about him too. “Besides, I won’t be alone, I’ve got the shopkeeper, the remote, and an entire van full of magical items. I’ll be fine.” Rob sighed, he still didn’t like the idea of sending Gumball in by himself, but what other choice did he have? If he went in with them he would be paralized with fear the entire time and effectively be useless. He would be more of a liability than an asset. 

“Ok, I’ll meet you back here when you’re done,” Rob relented. “Good luck in there Gumball.” Gumball responded by giving Rob a hug, just in case he never saw him again. Truth be told, he was more afraid than he was letting on. Rob was startled by his hug, and by the time he figured he should probably hug him back Gumball had already let go and was heading towards the van. 

“You sure you don’t want to stay behind with your little friend there?” The shopkeeper asked.

“No, I have to do this,” Gumball responded. “Now just go before I lose my nerve.” The shopkeeper nodded and started the van. Gumball closed his eyes and held his breath as they drove through the hole and into The Void. Gumball trepidatiously opened his eyes once they were through. It was actually kinda stunning in a creepy sort of way. Suddenly the ground started to shake and a low rumbling was heard throughout The Void, as if it was aware of their presence. 

“That can’t be a good sign,” Gumball said nervously. 

“Odd, it’s never done this before,” the shopkeeper commented. Out of the corner of his eye Gumball spotted a large metal object coming towards them. 

“Watch out!” Gumball shouted as he instinctively grabbed the remote and paused whatever was coming towards them in mid-air. 

“What was that?” 

“I don’t know, it was coming too fast for me to tell,” Gumball replied. He knew a bunch of random things floated around in here, but that was coming right at them. And it was fast, faster than anything else he’d seen in here. “I think The Void is trying to stop us. It’s done something like this before, it doesn’t want us to reach our destination. It doesn’t want us to escape.” As if on cue, the rumbling got even louder. “Uh, dude. I think you might want to drive faster,” Gumball said nervously. The shopkeeper didn’t have to be told twice, he stepped on the gas as a myriad of strange and forgotten objects came flying towards them. A can of toxic hair spray crashed through the window, causing glass to fly everywhere. Pet Rocks of all various shapes and sizes were pounding at the door, and the body of the car was being pierced by extremely sharp playing jacks. Even at top speed they couldn’t outrun The Void. Gumball looked at the remote in his hand, if he didn’t do something quick they were going to get pummeled, or worse, trapped in The Void forever. “Keep driving, I’ve got this!” Gumball shouted. He stuck his head out of the window to face the onslaught and saw a medieval-looking spear headed right towards him. He screamed and ducked his head back in the van just in time. That was a close call. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it as something else was coming at him now, but this time he was prepared. He pointed the remote at the flying object and pressed pause again, freezing it in mid-air. He didn’t have time to soak in the victory as something else came at him, an electric chainsaw of some kind. He pressed the power button on the remote and watched the electric blade fall into nothingness. “A chainsaw? Really? How is that a mistake?” Gumball shouted into the air. The Void switched tactics and placed a brick wall in front of the van that was not there before. The shopkeeper tried to swerve but it was obvious he wasn’t going to miss it in time. Gumball screamed and pressed the right arrow on the remote, teleporting the car to the right and out of the way. He let out some nervous laughter after that, surprised at the fact that he was still alive. 

“Gumball! Heads up!” The shopkeeper shouted, as yet another obstacle was put in front of him. Gumball pressed the left arrow this time and teleported the van away again. 

“Heck yeah! Is that all you got?!” Gumball shouted, filled with adrenaline and misplaced confidence. His confidence disappeared pretty quickly as he realized that the platform they were driving on wasn’t there anymore. They were falling, and fast. Gumball spotted a platform away from them and remembered something he saw in an episode. “Record and play,” he said to himself as he did exactly that, moving the platform to right beneath them so they would no longer be falling. “Thanks Rob.” he whispered. Thank goodness he had watched that episode. When the platform ran out Gumball pressed the skip button on the remote to teleport the van to the next platform. 

“The entrance is just up ahead!” The shopkeeper shouted as he pointed toward a hole in The Void. Unfortunately the hole was shrinking fast. It seemed as if The Void really didn’t want them to get there. Gumball pointed the remote towards it but he couldn’t think of a way to use it to make the hole any bigger, or to stop it from shrinking. Instead he just pressed fast forward, making the van go faster to hopefully catch up. But the hole was faster than they were, by the time they had reached it it was about as big as an inner tube, there was no way that the van could fit through there. 

“No! We’re too late!” Gumball shouted in despair. The shopkeeper looked back and forth between Gumball and the hole. The van definitely couldn’t fit in there, neither could he for that matter, but maybe someone of Gumball’s size…..

“Gumball…” He started. 

“Yeah?” 

“Good luck.” With that he threw the van door open, picked Gumball up, and threw him as hard as he could toward the entrance. Gumball was shocked, and he was screaming the entire time, but he managed to get through right before the entranceway was sealed off. He landed on the ground hard, but he managed to pick himself back up pretty quickly. 

“No!” Gumball shouted, patting down the area where the hole used to be. How was he supposed to get home now? If he didn’t get back within an hour he was a goner. Suddenly he heard someone clear his throat behind him. Gumball turned around to find an adult man, who looked exactly like one of those creatures that Rob was impersonating in the original timeline. His appearance freaked him out a little. What if he was going to try and convert him too?

“Gumball Watterson.” The figure said. “How can I help you?” 


	11. Welcome to The Real World

Gumball sat on the floor for a minute, gaping at his surroundings. It looked like he was in some kind of office. It was littered with all sorts of notebooks, scraps of paper, Post-Its with little notes written on them. What could he possibly find here that could help? And the guy, what were they called again? Oh right, humans. He was acting like he knew him but Gumball was pretty sure they had never met before. He had only interacted with one human and that wasn’t even a real human, that was just Rob in disguise. Was he going to try and convert him? Or was he some poor soul who got transformed? Or both? Gumball had a million questions in his head and a few of them spilled out. “Who are you? How do you know my name? Where am I?” The man gave him a strange look. 

“You came all the way here and you haven’t figured that out yet?” 

“Well, the van guy called this ‘the other side.’” 

“Ah, he can be so cryptic,” the man said while shaking his head and sighing. “I know more than just your name Gumball, I know everything about you. I work on your show.” Gumball’s breath caught for a minute. If what he said was true, if he really did work on the show then…...Gumball’s eyes widened as he finally put the pieces together, as he finally figured out what “the other side” actually meant. 

“Wait...so that means I’m in….” 

“The real world,” the man finished. 

“But...that’s not possible, I thought we had to transform in order to stay here,” Gumball stammered. 

“You do, hence the one hour time limit. It seems like you’re already starting to go,” the man said as he pointed to Gumball’s hand. Gumball looked at it and saw it was becoming translucent. He let out a yelp and stuck it in his pocket. Okay, he should probably get out of here fast then, but there was one question that he still had to ask. 

“How are you being so calm about this? If anything I drew came to life and started talking to me, I would be screaming my head off. Of course, that’s mostly because I’m pretty bad at art so anything I draw would be a walking monstrosity, but you get the idea.” 

“Well, I’ve known that you had a will of your own for a while now. Although I’m a little surprised that you managed to find a way here. How did you do that?” 

“You don’t know? I thought you ‘knew everything about me,’” Gumball quipped.

“Well, ever since the show ended, the cameras have shut off, so to speak. Sorry, I couldn’t think of a better analogy.” 

“Well, I’ve been doing some time traveling, using this,” Gumball pulled out the remote and almost dropped it in shock. The remote had changed its appearance. It wasn’t animated anymore like he was, it looked like it was live action. “Ok, it did not look like this in my world,” he clarified. The man looked at it closely. 

“Is this the remote from ‘The Disaster’ and ‘The Rerun’?” he asked. 

“Sure looks that way. It alters the world like that one did. Look,” Gumball pressed a button on the remote to demonstrate, but nothing happened. Gumball looked confused and pressed it again, but still nothing. “I don’t understand, it worked earlier.” 

“That doesn’t work here,” The man told him. “Well, unless you want to use it on your TV.” 

“And it only works in my world because I live in a TV show,” Gumball realized. “This remote isn’t even magical, is it? It’s just a regular remote from the real world.” 

The man nodded. “I’m curious though, I thought that Rob destroyed it at the end of that two parter. How is it back together?”

“How am I supposed to know? You work on the show! Don’t you control everything there?” 

“Not exactly,” he informed him. “It started off that way, but as time went by characters started doing things of their own volition, things that we didn’t expect, especially you. We knew that something was strange about you ever since you came across The Void for the first time. We certainly weren’t expecting you to find that, and we especially didn’t think you would go in there.” Gumball pondered this. If he wasn’t supposed to go into The Void in the first place, then Rob wasn’t supposed to get free, they weren’t supposed to meet, and all the things that happened between them that led to him coming here weren't supposed to happen. 

“So Molly and Rob? They were just supposed to do what? Stay in The Void forever?” Gumball said, feeling a rage building up inside him. “How could you do that to them? To all of us? Elmore is gone! It’s gone and it’s all your fault!” How could he just mess with people like this? Didn’t he care about what happened to them at all? Sure, it was just a TV show, but it didn’t feel that way to him. This was his life, the lives of his family and friends, and he was just using them for his own amusement. It might not have been real in the strictest sense of the word, but it was real to him. It was real to everyone who lived there. 

“I didn’t, Gumball,” the man said simply. “I didn’t end it the way that it did. The Void did that on its own. That’s something else I can’t control, but it’s not as benign as you are.” This response caught Gumball off guard. He wasn’t expecting him to say that. But it still didn’t calm his anger down any, and he noticed that he didn’t provide any explanation for what happened to Molly and Rob. Even if he didn’t put them in The Void directly, he was still the one who tossed them aside. He was the one who allowed them to be taken in the first place. Nothing he could say could justify that. 

“Ok, maybe the ending wasn’t your fault,” Gumball said begrudgingly. “But what about everything else? What about all of the things that you put me through?! Going off an unfinished bridge in a bucket, almost being eaten by an alligator, watching my own brother die! And it’s not just me, you did this to everyone! Not allowing anyone to grow up, tricking Darwin into thinking I didn’t care about him, Making Rob the villain! Heck, you dangled my whole family off a cliff just so you could get your precious episode! And for what? For a joke? For some cheap entertainment? Is that all you see me as? Just a walking punchline? Is that really all I am?” Gumball said, the fury in his voice fading away as he kept talking, being replaced with a melancholy tone. The man looked at him, concerned. He figured that Gumball would be mad, as he didn’t have an explanation for why he put them through those things. None that he would understand anyway. He started out just trying to make a TV show, but he couldn’t stop, even when it became something more. But he always held a fondness for the little blue cat, he had been working with him for over eight years after all. 

“Come on Gumball, you know deep down that you’re more than that. You wouldn’t have made it here if you weren’t.” Gumball didn’t say anything, he just stood there looking at the ground. “You always were an enigma, Gumball Watterson. There was always more to you than what we created you to be. You kinda took on a life of your own. Some characters can do that. As a writer you can’t always control them. Probably our fault, if I’m honest. We made you so stubborn. But you never really did what we wanted you to do, that wasn’t your style.” Gumball gave a small smile despite himself. This was true, he was never one to do what he was told. “As time went on you got more and more rebellious without even trying. So much so that it led to, well, this.” He said while gesturing towards Gumball.

“And my friends? My family? What does that make them? Just flat, cardboard cutouts parroting back what you want them to say?” Gumball asked. The question had startled even him. Even after everything he had learned, everything he had gone through, he couldn’t see them that way. These people had been in his life as long as he could remember. They were as real to him as anyone. Of course, this was his first time meeting a real person, so maybe he was way off as to what that even was. 

“No, Gumball, that’s not what I’m saying,” the man clarified. “Sure, they play their roles a little better than you do, but that’s not all they are. They’ve grown past that, and for some of them, like Darwin, that’s because of you.” 

“How do you know that?” Gumball snapped. “How do you know what’s really them and what’s them acting out the roles you put them in? How am  _ I  _ supposed to know what’s really me and what’s just the character traits you wrote for me?” The man was silent for a while, trying to think of a good answer. 

“I guess you’ll have to figure that out for yourself,” he said simply. Gumball rolled his eyes, that was such a cop out answer. Besides, it wasn’t like he had time to figure himself out if he would be trapped in The Void for all eternity. Suddenly Gumball felt weak and doubled over. He looked down and saw that his legs were transparent now. Gumball pulled out his phone to see how much time had passed. His eyes widened as he looked at the clock on the screen. He had just wasted half an hour arguing with a writer. Not exactly the best use of his time. Antagonizing the guy who he was about to ask for help probably wasn’t the best move either, but he still felt he had a right to be angry. The man reached a hand out in concern but he backed away from him in defiance. 

“I’m still mad at you,” Gumball told him. “But I have bigger things to worry about right now.” The man nodded in agreement. “You work on the show, so you know how it ends. So I’m gonna need you to work your weird author magic and fix it. Change it, rewrite it, do whatever you have to do so we can have a different ending.”

“I can’t do that,” the man said simply. 

“What do you mean? Of course you can! You’ve been messing with our lives for who knows how many years now and you’re not going to do anything the one time I ask you to?”

“No, you don’t understand, I really can’t,” the man explained. “The show is over, the last episode already aired. I don’t write for the show anymore so I can’t change it. Once something’s aired it’s set in stone.” Gumball’s face fell. No, no no no, this couldn’t be right! This was his last hope, he had crossed The Void to get here and he couldn’t do anything? Couldn’t help at all? How could he fix this? How could he save the show if there was no show left to save?

“So it’s hopeless? There’s nothing I can do?” Gumball said in despair. 

“I said that there’s nothing  _ I _ can do. Not that there’s nothing  _ you _ can do,” the man clarified. “You still live in Elmore, so you can still change it.”

“But how? I’ve tried pretty much everything! I went back in time! I traveled to another dimension! I even teamed up with my worst enemy! And found out that maybe he’s not such a bad guy in the process, but that’s not the point! I’m running out of ideas! So why don’t you just tell me what to do like you always do!” The man just gave him a sad look and shook his head.

“I can’t Gumball. I’m not even sure how to change it myself, if I could have given you a way out, I would’ve. I can’t just tell you what to do anymore, besides, you never listened to me anyways. In the end a lot of the best ideas were yours, not mine. You’ve done a lot on your own, I know you can do this too. It’s time that you write your own story.”

“Write my own story...” Gumball repeated as an idea started to form in his head. Maybe it wasn’t hopeless. Maybe coming here wasn’t a waste after all. If the remote was nothing more than a regular remote from the real world, then anything he found here would hopefully affect his world in a similar fashion. He needed to write his own story, and a remote wouldn’t let him do that, all it could do was change the channel. But maybe something else here could. 

“I can see that you’re getting an idea,” the man said, interrupting his train of thought. 

“Maybe,” Gumball said with a smirk. “But I think I’m gonna need one of your notebooks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my original outline, the mysterious man was supposed to be Ben Boquelet himself. But as I was working on this chapter it just seemed kinda wrong to put a real, actual living person who could one day stumble across this in my dumb fanfiction. So I left it ambiguous. You can read it as him being Ben if you want, or he could just be a random writer. It’s up to you.


	12. Reunited

As soon as Gumball grabbed the notebook he clutched his stomach in pain and fell even further onto the ground. It looked like his torso was disappearing now too. He checked his phone for the time, he only had ten minutes left. He had to get out of here now. The man looked at him nervously. It looked like he was going to disappear any minute now. 

“Do you have a plan on how to get home? I’m not exactly sure how to open a portal between worlds,” the man admitted. He probably should’ve thought of that earlier. 

“I might,” Gumball said nervously. If the notebook was anything like the remote, hopefully it’ll affect stuff in Elmore, and since he was from Elmore, maybe it’ll work on him too? He hoped so, he didn’t have any other ideas on how to get back home. “Well, I guess this is goodbye,” he said. The man felt a stab of sadness. He wasn’t working on the show anymore, and he didn’t think Gumball would ever come back to this world, so he would likely never see him again. He would never know if he succeeded in his quest or not. 

“Just….good luck in there Gumball,” he said. Gumball looked at him in surprise. His voice sounded more tender and caring than he ever heard it sound before. No time to dwell on that though, he had to get home before he disappeared completely. He wrote in the notebook, praying that it would work. He saw a flash of white light and closed his eyes at the brightness. When he opened them again he saw that he was no longer in the office. He was on a street of some kind. He looked around and gave a sigh of relief when he recognized some of the buildings. There was the Joyful Burger, the arcade, Ripley 2000. Thank goodness, he was back in Elmore. He then examined his body to see if anything had faded. Nope, still as solid as ever. The notebook had worked, it had actually worked! He finally had a way he could save everyone! 

“Gumball!” He heard someone shout. He looked around for the source of the sound and saw Rob rushing towards him with a worried look on his face. Gumball smiled and headed towards him. He was about to give him a hug, but he remembered that Rob didn’t like it when he did that, so he stopped himself at the last minute. “Gumball what happened?” Rob asked. “I was standing outside in that alley then there was this white light and the next thing I knew I was here.” 

“Yeah, that was my doing. If I did everything right we should be back…..” Gumball trailed off as he pulled out his phone to check the date. He smiled as the screen read, June 24 2019. He was back in the day it all started. “Yes! It worked!” He cheered as he showed Rob the screen. Rob looked at it in confusion. 

“You brought us back to the day Elmore started falling apart? Why would you do that?” He asked. 

“Well, this is when it all started, I figured this is where it should end too. Besides, there are a few days in my past that I don’t exactly want to re-live,” Gumball explained. Rob nodded, made sense. There were some days that he didn’t want to re-live either, and some of Gumball’s adventures had looked exhausting. He understood why he wouldn’t be keen on doing them over again. 

“So you have a plan?” Rob asked. 

Gumball nodded. “I do. I took something back with me from the real world.” He took out the notebook and showed it to Rob. “With this we could rewrite the ending, give us and our show a happily ever after.” 

“You really think that’s gonna work?” Rob asked cautiously, not wanting to get his hopes up. 

“Well, it got me back here, didn’t it?” Gumball pointed out. Rob nodded, that was true. “And if you need more proof…” He then wrote something down and the color of the sky changed from blue to yellow and back again. Rob’s jaw dropped and he looked at him in awe.

“Did….Did you do that?” He asked. Gumball nodded. Rob felt a feeling spring up in his chest. He hadn’t felt it in a long time, but it felt like hope. This notebook, if it worked how Gumball described, it could save everyone. This could actually work. “Well, what are you waiting for? Write a happy ending!” For some reason Gumball seemed nervous and he hesitated. 

“Wait….there’s still some things I want to…..Just in case….”

“We have plenty of time for that stuff later,” Rob urged him. He wanted to end this whole ordeal as soon as possible and he couldn’t understand why Gumball was hesitating. 

“But…” Gumball said feebly. He knew that he didn’t have much of an argument, but he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no way that this was going to work perfectly the first time, these kinds of things never did. He was maybe hoping to find some friends and family, just in case he never saw them again. Rob gave him a confused look, though he thought he saw some concern in there as well. Gumball sighed. 

“I can’t explain it, it’s just….Something doesn’t feel right,” Gumball said. “It feels like this is too easy.” 

“You think going through The Void and into the real world was easy?” Rob asked in disbelief. 

“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s like….it doesn’t feel like it’s over. That there’s bound to be some unforeseen complication, some third-act twist.” 

“Gumball, I think you’re just being paranoid. This isn’t an episode of your show, there isn’t a neatly structured story, and there’s no twist in the third act. You’ve been living in a TV world for far too long,” Rob said. This was certainly a role switch, he thought. Usually he was the pessimistic one and Gumball was more optimistic. He wasn’t sure if he liked this change of temperament. But he had finally started to feel hopeful again and he didn’t want Gumball to squash that. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Gumball said, but he couldn’t let go of the feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong. He took a deep breath and braced himself to write in the notebook when he felt someone tap his shoulder. 

“Gumball? Or should I say, Future Gumball?” He heard a voice from behind him say. 

“Darwin!” Gumball shouted as he turned around and squeezed him tightly. He was so happy to see him again. He always felt better when Darwin was by his side. “You’re right, I was the Future Gumball at the warehouse that day. How did you know?” 

“You were talking with Rob so I kinda figured,” Darwin explained. “It’s been about a month and I still remember what happened. So, did you ever find a way to stop the apocalypse?” 

“Well, I’ve got one thing that should work,” Gumball said as he pulled out the notebook. “I got this notebook in the real world, so hopefully it should affect things in this one.”

“Wait a minute,” Darwin said, trying to process what Gumball just said. “You went to the real world? Like, the actual, real world?” Gumball nodded as confirmation. “How? How did you get there? What was it like?” 

“I promise I’ll tell you all about it later. But I should probably, you know, save Elmore first.” 

“Yeah, you probably should,” Darwin agreed. He then took a more serious expression. “So, this is it, huh?” 

“Yeah. I think so. I actually wanted to find you. It looks like this might be our last chance so I wanted to see you, you know, just in case this is goodbye.” 

“It won’t be,” Darwin told him. He took his hand and gave it a squeeze to reassure him. “I believe in you, we all do.” Gumball was about to ask what he meant by “all” when his gaze moved away from Darwin and towards the massive crowd of people standing behind him. In it he saw his family, both immediate and extended, Penny and both of her parents, all of his classmates from Elmore Jr High, as well as some of the faculty. Even Mr Robinson was there. The sight of it was enough to make Gumball speechless.

“What?....but...how? How did you get all of these people to show up?” He sputtered in shock. 

“I mentioned that you were in trouble,” Darwin said. “Everyone came to help after that. More people care about you than you think.” Gumball started tearing up. Did they really all come out here for him?

“Wow. I don’t know what to say other than thank you. Thank you so much,” he said. He tried to stop the tears, but they just kept coming. He felt bad dragging them all out here when he could probably take care of this whole thing himself. But it was the thought that counted. Besides, it was probably good that they were all in one place, that way, if things did go wrong, at least they would all be together. He didn’t want to lose anyone again. 

“What’s going on Gumball?” Penny shouted from the crowd. It wasn’t like him to get so emotional. “What’s happening?” 

“If this works, hopefully nothing,” Gumball replied. “But if it doesn’t, let’s just say that things will go downhill fast. I want to keep you guys all together so I don’t lose you.”

“Lose us? What do you mean?” 

“I would try to explain but it’s a long story and I don’t know how much time we have left.” 

“Until what?” Anais piped up. “Because so far it seems that all you’ve done is send us on a wild goose chase! What’s going on here Gumball? Really?” Gumball couldn’t look his little sister in the eye. He remembered how upset she was the first time the world fell apart. He didn’t want to put her through that again, especially if it could all be avoided. Besides, what would he even tell her? There was no explanation that his super-logical little sister would believe. 

“I’m sorry sis, I can’t tell you. At least, not right now. Maybe once all this is over….”

“When all of “what” is over? Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?” 

“Look, all you need to know right now is that if I don’t do something soon then something terrible is going to happen.” Anais looked skeptical and she crossed her arms. 

“Oh really? Why should I believe you when you won’t even tell me what it is?” 

“Come on Anais, you know me. Do you really think I would be acting like this if it wasn’t serious?” That seemed to get through to her as she dropped the skeptical look and uncrossed her arms. She had to admit, he did have a point there. He looked like he was really freaked out about something. “I know I’m being really vague right now, but I’ve seen some things that can’t be logic-ed away. Things that you wouldn’t believe. I’m sorry, but I just have to ask you to trust me on this one.” Anais thought it over, could she just trust him on blind faith alone? This could be another Gumball scheme. But then again, she really didn’t think so. He had pointed it out himself, he was acting uncharacteristically serious. He seemed pretty freaked out about something. She wished he would tell her what it was so she could help, but it didn’t look like he was going to be doing that anytime soon. If trusting him was the best way to help him, then so be it. After about a minute Anais took a deep breath and nodded. 

“Okay.” 

“Okay? Really?” Gumball said. He didn’t think that she would actually trust him with this. Usually she was always looking for some kind of explanation for everything. 

“Okay. I trust you.” She repeated. Gumball bent down and gave her a hug, causing the little girl to jump as she wasn’t expecting it. But she quickly gave him a hug back. Whatever this was, it seemed to be seriously affecting Gumball. “But I am going to make you explain everything at some point.” 

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Gumball told her. Eventually he broke the hug. Now that everyone was here he was feeling more confident about the task that lay ahead. But there were still some things he wanted to do first. He turned back to face Rob again, who had been looking a little awkward since the big show of support. He didn’t think that most of the people in the crowd liked him very much. And he wasn’t proud of it, but he did feel a stab of envy seeing everyone come out here for Gumball. It wasn’t like anyone came out for him when he was in trouble, after all. But he tried to squash that feeling down. It wasn’t Gumball’s fault that everything happened the way it did. He knew that now. He saw Gumball coming up to him and tried to give a neutral expression, trying to hide his jealousy. 

“Look, Rob,” Gumball started. “You have no idea how grateful I am that you stuck with me throughout all this. You’ve helped me so much already, and I have no right to ask you to help me more. But I’m going to. I know you said that nothing’s going to go wrong, and you’re probably right. But just in case something does...I might need some backup.” Gumball said as he took out the remote and placed it in Rob’s hands. Rob looked at it, speechless. Gumball wouldn’t let him touch the remote this entire time, and he didn’t blame him. Last time he used it he tried to destroy him and everyone he loved. So why would he trust him with it now?

“But...why? Why give this to me? Now you have Darwin and Penny and….” 

“And none of them know how to use this remote. You do,” Gumball said. “I trust you, ok? Now just take it before I change my mind.” Now it was Rob’s turn to get teary-eyed. Even after everything that he had done, Gumball trusted him. Sure, it wasn’t a whole crowd like Gumball had gotten, but it still meant the world to Rob. He took the remote carefully. Now that he had Gumball’s trust, he didn’t want to lose it. Still, he hoped that he wouldn’t have to use it. 

“Thanks Rob,” Gumball said. He couldn’t tell if Rob’s tears were grateful or frightened, so he felt appreciative when he took the remote. He hoped nothing would happen, he didn’t want to drag Rob into another one of his messes. He then turned to Darwin, his oldest and best friend. The only one, apart from Rob, who knew what was really going on. It was hard to look him in the eye. 

“Darwin? I know this all seems pretty straightforward but I just get this bad feeling that something’s going to go wrong. So, just in case….” Gumball then opens his arms and brings Darwin in for a tight hug. Darwin quickly hugged him back. Though he would never admit it to Gumball, he had a nagging feeling that something was gonna go wrong too. But if it did, he was sure that they could get out of it, they always did. 

“Now, quit stalling and do what you’ve gotta do,” Darwin teased, attempting to lighten the mood a little. Gumball gave a small smile and nodded. He got out the notebook and attempted to write, but as soon as his pencil touched the paper the ground started to shake. Gumball’s stomach sank, this was just like what happened the first time. But it wasn’t time yet! It was much later in the day the last time this happened. Then it hit him, this was just like the van chase, The Void was trying to stop him. This was Gumball’s last thought before the ground gave way and Elmore’s citizens went plunging into The Void. 


	13. Robbed

Gumball kept falling until he eventually hit a platform. Well, he didn’t get knocked out this time around— that was good. He looked around for the crowd of people he entered with and found them on a platform that was behind and above him. Crud, it was too high up to jump. He found Rob separated from the group on a platform that was a few feet to the right of him. Maybe he could get there? It was a bit below him, so if he missed the jump he’d fall. Should he chance it? He was thinking about all of this when he heard a voice say, “You really didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” Gumball’s ears pricked up. He didn’t recognize the voice. It sounded strangely ethereal, kind of high pitched, but not really in a feminine way. The voice didn’t sound masculine or feminine, now that he thought about it, kind of a weird mixture of both. He couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, it seemed like it was coming from all around him, like surround sound at a movie theater. 

“Who are you?” Gumball shouted into the air. His voice was shaking a little, he couldn’t explain why, but something about that voice unnerved him. It just seemed  _ wrong _ somehow. “Where are you coming from?” 

“You really don’t get it? You’re thicker than I thought you were, Gumball Watterson.” The voice gave a little laugh that sent shivers down Gumball’s spine, and come to think of it, how did it know his name? “It’s not  _ who _ I am, it’s  _ what _ I am. As for where I’m coming from, you’re looking at it, kid.” Gumball’s eyes widened as it clicked, as he figured out who, or rather, what he was talking to. 

“You’re….” Gumball started. He couldn’t bring himself to finish that sentence. He wanted to exclaim that this wasn’t possible, but he had seen so many impossible things today. Heck, he was in the real world not even an hour ago, so he shouldn’t have been surprised. Yet, he was. Just when he thought that he had seen it all, the universe threw him another curveball. 

“I have many names.” The voice continued. “I’ve been called The Wasteland, Limbo, The Static Dimension, but I believe your name for me was The Void.” Gumball paled— yup,that’s what he was afraid they’d say. Rob paled too, in all the time he had spent in The Void, he had never heard it talk. But he knew The Void well, he knew that it could get inside your head. Now that it had a way to do that more directly this could be a disaster. Just looking at The Void again caused fear to strike his heart, now he had to listen to it too? Everyone else just looked confused, what the heck was The Void? And why did Gumball and Rob look so terrified of it? 

“You...You can talk.” Gumball stuttered. The Void gave another laugh. 

“I contain all of the knowledge of the universe Gumball, of course I can talk.” Okay, this was definitely new and surprising information, but maybe this could be good. If The Void could talk to him, then he could talk to it. He didn’t think it could be reasoned with — it had long passed the point of no return — but maybe he could outsmart it somehow. Keep it distracted so he could stealthily use the notebook before it noticed. It wasn’t much of a plan, as he wasn’t entirely sure how he could distract it and use the notebook at the same time, but it was all he had.

“Really? I thought you just got the rejects.” Gumball responded, slowly getting his confidence back. Rob looked a little dejected at that statement. Crud, he didn’t mean it like that, he was just trying to get under The Void’s skin, or static, as it were. The Void didn’t seem that offended though, as it just gave another condescending laugh. He was getting real sick of that laugh. 

“Silly child, how do you think I decide what stays and what goes?” 

“What or who?” Gumball retorted. “With all the knowledge of the universe you would think the word kidnapping would enter your vocabulary.” He started reaching towards his back pocket where the notebook was kept. Rob noticed his arm moving and quickly figured out what his plan was. Ah, so he was picking a fight on purpose, he had wondered what he was hoping to gain by back talking to The Void, but he thought that Gumball was just being his usual sarcastic self. Rob started reaching for the remote in response. Gumball couldn’t do this alone, he would have to distract it when Gumball started writing, make The Void think the remote was the real weapon, and turn its attention towards him. The idea terrified him, he didn’t want to be in the clutches of The Void again, but what other choice did he have? Gumball noticed Rob staring and met his eyes, giving him a small nod. Good, he understood the plan. With him on his side this could actually work.

“Please, it’s not kidnapping if they don’t even exist.” The Void responded. “It’s not like anyone even noticed.” 

“Because you wiped our memories! That’s a dirty trick and you know it.” 

“I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the audience.” The Void replied. Everyone other than Gumball, Rob and Darwin looked confused. What was it talking about? What audience? “Do you really think they would have noticed that Molly and Rob were missing if you didn’t go in and rescue them? Do you think they would have cared? Of course not, because they’re not real. They’re just props, to be moved around and used as needed. They simply were no longer useful.” 

“No, you’re wrong about them, about us. We’re not just objects to be used as you see fit! We have thoughts, we have feelings!”

“Of course you would think that, as you’re just the same as them. A hollow vessel made for entertainment. You’re not real, You don’t even know what real is. You’re a simulation of a real person. Those ‘feelings’ are just written for you.” Gumball didn’t react. He’d heard those words before, heck he’d even told himself all of this, but he knew better now. Yes he was just a creation, but if he could accomplish everything he did, even after they pulled the plug on his show, some part of him, somewhere, had to be real. Even if it wasn’t in the traditional sense. The Void was a bit surprised that it wasn’t getting a reaction, but it kept going regardless.

“Don’t you get it? You’re nothing, Gumball. Just a character without a show. Speaking of which.” All of sudden Gumball’s arm was yanked away from his pocket, almost as if it was pulled back by an invisible force. “You didn’t think you could get away with that, did you?”

Gumball’s face fell. Crap, it noticed. No point in being sneaky anymore. He’d have to make his move now and hope he could dodge what The Void threw at him. He tried to reach back and grab the notebook, but found that he suddenly couldn’t. He couldn’t move his arm. He tried the other one but he couldn’t move that one either. He couldn’t move at all, it was like he was frozen. His eyes widened in panic, what was going on? The others noticed Gumball struggling and rushed to try and help him, but they were pushed back by an unseen force. They tried to go forward again but it was like some invisible wall was stopping them from going any further. Rob was watching all of this, wide eyed. Oh no, this was bad. He had to help Gumball somehow. He tried reaching for the remote but found that he was frozen too. It seemed The Void had caught on to his part in their little scheme. 

“Silly Gumball, thinking you could fight me.” The Void taunted. “Don’t you know what you are? You’re a loser, a cheap joke, only good for getting into wacky hijinks. Your shctik might’ve been fun for a while, but it’s gotten old, as stale as your dumb little show.”

“Gumball, what is it talking about?” Penny asked from the crowd. 

“He hasn’t told you?” The Void replied smugly. “You’re not real. Nothing here is. Your lives are nothing more than a TV show.”

“That’s not true, you’re lying!” Another voice shouted out, Anais this time. 

“Oh really?” The Void said. Suddenly the static was playing a montage of clips from the show. “Answer me this then, how is it that it’s been over six years and no one has aged, hmm? How come when you start singing music starts playing in the background? How can you get brutally injured one minute, and the next you’re perfectly fine?” Not a peep was heard from the crowd, they couldn’t think of a good answer for any of those questions. “Haven’t you ever felt like something was strange about this world? That things kept happening around you that shouldn’t? Didn’t you ever wonder why wacky situations kept popping up?”

“I….I thought Gumball…” Anais started. 

“You thought it was all Gumball? Please. He’s trouble but his antics aren’t good enough for an episode a week.” Anais, as well as several other members of the crowd looked down in shame. So when Gumball had said that things weren’t his fault, that the universe was against him, he was right. They blamed Gumball for every little problem in Elmore, when half of them weren’t his fault at all. Someone or something else was pulling the strings the whole time. They all owed Gumball an apology after this was all over. If this would ever be over. “It’s time to face the facts.” The Void continued. “You’re on a TV show, and your episodes have just run out.” The Elmore citizens felt sick, sick to their stomachs. What they were saying, it couldn’t be true, could it? But it did make sense, it made way too much sense. 

“Gumball?” Anais asked with tears in her eyes. 

“I’m sorry, it’s true.” Gumball admitted. A few gasps were heard after this statement. “I just found out today, or I guess technically yesterday. I was going to tell you after all this was over.” Anais fully gave into her tears after that, putting a pang in Gumball’s heart. Some other Elmore citizens started crying as well, while others were panicking and some just gave a thousand yard stare. “But trust me, no matter what The Void tells you, that doesn’t mean we aren’t, in some way, real.” 

“Oh aren’t you?” The Void taunted. “If you’re so real, then how are you so easy to manipulate? The Void moved Gumball’s arm in order to prove a point. A surge of fear ran through him as it moved without his consent. “Face it, Gumball.” He heard the voice around him say, “You’re nothing but a puppet on a string.” Oh no, this was bad. This was really bad. The Void could do more than just stop him, it could control him, it could control his every action. Gumball watched as his arm moved again, this time taking out the notebook, and stretching outwards as if he was going to drop it. No! Without that notebook, he was powerless to save Elmore. He couldn’t let The Void have it, he just couldn’t! His resolve managed to break through and he tightened his grip on the notebook, but The Void loosened it again seconds later. It went back and forth like that for a bit. Whenever he managed to get a tighter grip on the notebook, it was loosened again almost immediately. He was slowing it down, but that wasn’t enough. 

“Come on Gumball! You can do th-” Darwin started to say, but he was cut off. He couldn’t move his mouth anymore, he couldn’t say anything. The Void had taken control of him too. 

“Darwin!” Gumball shouted. He looked at his struggling brother, and the terrified faces of the townsfolk around them. His friends, his family, he couldn’t save them. They were wrong to believe in him. He’d let them down. All he ever did was let them down. Elmore was going to crumble once more and it was all his fault. Suddenly The Void let out a high pitched scream, and the entire area seemed to shake. Gumball covered his ears in pain, before realizing what he just did and doing a double take. He could move again! He was free! But how? Gumball looked up and saw Rob, remote in hand, with a determined look on his face. Gumball gave a relieved smile. Rob must have used the remote to hurt The Void somehow. He saved him. He must have broken free from The Void’s control and saved him. He knew giving him that remote was a good idea. “Yes!” Gumball cheered. “Thanks Rob!” Rob looked back at him and smiled. He couldn’t believe he actually did that. That he actually broke free. He didn’t think The Void could be defied like that, he didn’t think it was possible. Gumball was right all along, they did have free will. They could change their destinies. They were more than just pawns to be used. 

Their good feeling didn’t last very long as Rob was suddenly flung into the air. He started hanging there, almost as if he had been grabbed. The static in The Void darkened and a low rumbling was heard, almost like thunder. Gumball and Rob’s smiles immediately fell away. The Void was angry, and they could tell that it meant business. 

“ _ You. _ ” It said. “You have been a thorn in my side for way too long. Every time I try to get rid of you, you come crawling back, like a filthy cockroach. But no more. This time you’re going somewhere you can  _ never _ come back from.” At this Rob started to fall. Gumball reached for the notebook in an attempt to try and use it to save him. He had gotten the notebook out of his pocket but before he could write anything down Rob started to crumble. Gumball started to panic. No, he couldn’t be too late, he just couldn't be! He tried to write something down, but Rob was falling too fast. No matter what he tried it wasn’t going to be quick enough. Rob’s body started turning to ash and crumbling away as he fell. The last thing Gumball saw was Rob’s terrified face as he hit the ground. His scream traveled through The Void, and then suddenly, silence. Gumball’s breath caught in his throat as he looked over the scene. Rob was now nothing more than a pile of ash, with the remote lying next to him in broken pieces on the floor.


	14. Gumball Watterson Vs. The Void

“NOOOOOO!” Gumball’s scream pierced the air. Tears were streaming down his face as he looked at the pile of ash Rob once was. Rob, with all of his stubbornness and his wit and his hidden heart of gold, how could he just be gone? Tears sprang up in the eyes of the rest of the Elmore citizens as well. None of them knew him like Gumball did, but to just destroy him like that, it was so cruel. He didn’t deserve that, no one did. Gumball was frozen again, but nothing was controlling him this time. He just stared at the ash, tears spilling down his cheeks, for what felt like an eternity, until something in him just snapped. Gumball turned toward The Void, fury in his eyes. “How could you? How could you do something like that? You killed him! You just killed him!” 

“How could I have killed him when he doesn’t even really exist?” The Void retorted. “Think of it as just getting rid of an unwanted character.” 

“ _ I _ wanted him,” Gumball shouted. “He was my friend!” The Void gave it’s trademark laugh at this comment, which just infuriated Gumball more. 

“Friend? Ha! Some friend you turned out to be. You certainly didn’t show any remorse the first time he found himself in here.”

“I didn’t know him then. You erased my memory of him!” 

“Oh please, don’t act like you had nothing to do with it. If you hadn’t ignored him he wouldn’t have ended up here in the first place. I only take what’s unimportant Gumball, I didn’t make him that way. You made him exactly what he is now. You were the one who ignored him, you were the one who made him the villain, you were the one who got him involved in this crazy plan of yours that was doomed to fail. Face it kid, this is all your fault.” 

“No, you were the one that trapped him, you were the one who traumatized him, and you were the one that killed him!” Gumball shouted. But despite saying this their words still echoed in the back of his mind. There was some truth to them, he did use Rob to an extent. Heck, the whole reason he asked him to come along on this adventure was because he had information, not because they were friends. And look where it led him! As just a pile of ash in The Void. He never came through for him when it counted. Not when he was in The Void for the first time, not in the warehouse, and not now. All he had done to Rob was hurt him, no wonder he had hated him so much. He really was a terrible friend. He was a terrible  _ person _ . Why wasn’t he nicer to him when he had the chance? Why didn’t he tell him how much he meant to him? “I’m so sorry Rob.” He said to the pile of ash on the ground. “I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault. I should’ve saved you. I always should’ve saved you.” The other Elmore citizens were silent, letting Gumball mourn. None of them really knew what to say. They hadn’t encountered death before, especially not seeing someone get killed right in front of them. Some wanted to give him a hug, but they were stopped by the barrier. Darwin ached to tell Gumball that it wasn’t his fault, that he couldn’t have known this would happen, but he still couldn’t speak. Gumball didn’t even notice the other’s reactions, he was lost in his own grief. He sobbed for a little while longer when he heard The Void’s voice rise up around him.

“Drop the notebook, Gumball, or I’ll do the same thing to you.” Gumball froze and his tears stopped. He heard some gasps and words of protests in the background, but they were drowned out by his own thoughts. He didn’t want to die. He really, really didn’t. But what was the alternative? Dropping the notebook and being trapped in The Void forever? Not to mention dooming everyone else to the same fate. No, he couldn’t do that. Maybe if he kept the notebook, he could write something in it before he perished, maybe. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all he had. Gumball defiantly shook his head, tears starting back up again.

“No? Oh, I see. Trying to play the hero, one last time. How noble. Pointless, but noble. Threatening you isn’t going to do the trick. You seem to be quite attached to these characters however, maybe one of them?” Gumball’s breath caught in his throat. No, no, this wasn’t part of the plan! He could risk his own life, but not anyone else’s! Meanwhile, The Void was trying to decide who to go with. The girlfriend? The parents? No, if he was going to comply, they needed to bring out the big guns, the person who meant the most to him. Gumball’s heart stopped when Darwin started to lift into the air in a manner similar to Rob right before he perished. Of course, of course it would go for Darwin. Everyone knew how much he meant to him. The tears got heavier and he tried to look away, but he just couldn’t. Tears were flowing down Darwin’s face as well. He feared for his life, obviously, but he also was scared for Gumball. If only he could talk to him! The tears on Darwin’s face were too much for Gumball to bear. “No! Let him go!” Gumball shouted, even though he knew that it wasn’t going to listen. The Void let out another one of its chilling laughs. “Only if you give me what I want.” It replied. “Tick tock Gumball, you don’t have much time.” Gumball racked his brain. This was an impossible choice. If he handed over the notebook, he had no chance of saving Elmore. The remote was gone now too so he couldn’t go back and try again. But at the same time, he couldn’t just let Darwin die. “Three, two….” 

“Stop! Just stop! Please! I’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t hurt him!” Darwin stopped floating upwards at this statement and just stayed in place. 

“That’s more like it.” The Void said. Darwin, instead of feeling relieved, just started crying harder. What was he doing? He couldn’t risk all of Elmore for him. He had to stop him somehow. But what could he do? He wasn’t able to talk to him, and he couldn’t move, but he knew he had to do something. He just had to. Gumball reluctantly grabbed the notebook and lifted it up. He was just about to drop it when suddenly he heard someone shouting at him.

“Gumball no!” Darwin shouted. Gumball looked at him in shock, both from what he was saying, and the fact that he could talk at all. Wasn’t The Void controlling him? How did he break free? Darwin was shocked as well, he didn’t think that would actually work. He had to say what he needed to say quickly in case The Void took back control. “Gumball, please, you can’t do this!” 

“I have to. I can’t risk your life. I can’t risk anyone’s life. I’m out of options.” 

“You’re Gumball Watterson! You’re never out of options! Every time you’re in a jam you think of some crazy way to get out of it, it’s one of the things I love about you. Please, Gumball you can’t give up yet.” 

“What else am I supposed to do?! I just lost Rob, I can’t risk losing you too.” 

“I know, and that’s awful, but Rob wouldn’t want you to give up. He believed in you, and I do too. If anyone can get us out of this, it’s you.” Gumball just shook his head. 

“I can’t.” 

“Yes you can!” Another voice shouted at him, Penny’s this time. “I may not know much about this TV show stuff, but I know you. And you’ve done some incredible things! You time traveled! Rode in Santa’s sleigh! You even helped me break out of my shell and stand up to my family! If you did all that, you can do this! 

“That was different.” Gumball weakly protested. 

“Maybe, but so are you.” Anais piped up. “You’re better than you think you are Gumball! You constantly do things that surprise me. And I’ll probably deny this later, but you’re smarter than I give you credit for. You can think of something, you always do!” At this, it was as if some sort of floodgate had opened and everyone was shouting encouragement at Gumball.

“You’ve got this Gumball!” 

“We believe in you!” 

“You can do it!” Gumball started tearing up from the show of support. It was one thing when they all showed up for him, but this, this was overwhelming. He couldn’t let all of these people down. Darwin was right, everyone was right. If he didn’t fight back, then Rob’s sacrifice would have been for nothing. And the last thing he wanted to do was let him down again. If all these people thought he could do it, then maybe, just maybe, they were right. He couldn’t just let The Void win, he had to fight back. For Rob. For Elmore. 

“Shut up!” The Void boomed, loud enough that several Elmore residents had to cover their ears. Darwin then started to float into the air again. “It’s funny, I didn’t think you were someone I had to worry about. Happy and agreeable Darwin Watterson, not even capable of making any decisions on your own. But your loyalties, they’re so strong. Too strong. Maybe I should just get rid of you now.” The Void attempted to do so, and Darwin closed his eyes in anticipation. He braced himself for the fall, but it never came. Darwin tentatively opened his eyes and saw The Void struggling to drop him. It was like something was keeping it from getting near him. Some strange force. The Void had barely started to comprehend this when it heard a shouting in the distance. 

“Leave my brother alone!” Gumball screamed, holding the notebook in his hand. He wrote something down and Darwin safely floated down to the ground below. Darwin smiled in relief, he knew it. He always knew that Gumball could do it, even if Gumball himself didn’t. 

“What?!” The Void shouted. How could this be possible? It attempted to get Gumball back in it’s control, but no matter what it tried Gumball didn’t budge. 

“You don’t get to hurt my friends, or my family, or me, ever again.” Gumball said, voice tinged with rage. The Elmore citizens looked at each other, wide eyed. They had never seen Gumball this angry. “You don’t get to control us anymore, we’re more than just your little puppets.” Gumball wrote something in the notebook and all the barriers around the citizens were removed. They could all move freely again. “I think it’s time you learned something that the writers of my show found out a while back.  _ No one. can tell me. what to do _ . Now let’s see how you like being erased from existence.” At that, Gumball started frantically scribbling in the notebook. The Void did everything in its power to get him back under its control, but he shrugged off everything it tried like it was nothing. Not even noticing the blows. It was getting desperate, it was starting to lose power. This could be the end of it for good. It had to do something, anything. It couldn’t go out like this! But there was nothing it could do, Gumball had finished writing in the notebook. It’s fate was sealed. It let out a final, ear-splitting screech before a white light flashed. Everyone closed their eyes from the sudden brightness as they were thrown off their feet, the screech coming to an abrupt stop.

Gumball slowly opened his eyes again. God, his head hurt. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the crying, the sudden bright light, or both. His vision was blurry as his eyes slowly started to adjust back to normal. As they focused he could see the street right in front of him. His heart leapt. Was it possible? Was he back in Elmore? He looked up and saw the traffic lights, the buildings, the bright blue sky. Everything was back where it should be. Gumball started crying tears of relief. He did it. After everything he had gone through he finally did it. He was safe. Everyone was safe. Well, almost everyone. There was a pang in his heart when he thought about that, but he was quickly distracted as he felt two arms wrap around him, Darwin’s. He gave a small smile, at least he was ok, thank goodness. He didn’t know what he would do without Darwin. Soon after that he felt six more, Mom, Dad, and Anais. Gumball gave into their hug and collapsed into their arms, crying into his Mom’s shoulder. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, little fun fact, Gumball is now immune to all forms of mind control. He shrugged off The Void's attempts so completely that the affect became permanent. So, Carrie can't possess him now, for example. So Gumball has a little special talent of his own now. Also, it you want to know my voiceclaim for The Void, it's White Dimond from Steven Universe. I based a lot of that character on her tbh.


	15. Welcome Home

Gumball wasn’t sure if he had been crying for a minute or an hour. It was like a million emotions came flooding out of him all at once. Relief, anger, happiness, grief, it all came pouring through in his tears. He clung to his family like they were a life raft, keeping him afloat. His family returned the embrace, most of them not entirely sure what just happened but clearly being able to see that Gumball needed them right then. The rest of the town stood back, letting the family have their moment. “Gumball? Gumball, hey. It’s ok. It’s ok.” Darwin told him while holding him close. Truth be told, he was also feeling a bit shaken up by everything that happened in The Void. He really thought that he was going to die for a second there. And if that was what he was feeling, he couldn’t imagine what Gumball was going through right now. After everything with The Void, not to mention whatever he had gotten into during his time travel escapades, it was no wonder that he was being so emotional.

“Darwin?” Gumball choked out between his tears. “Did that really just happen? Is the Void really gone? It’s not coming back?” Darwin’s heart broke at Gumball’s tone. He had never heard Gumball sound so unsure of himself before. Gumball had always put on a veneer of confidence, even when it was clear that he wasn’t, but that had completely fallen away now. 

“It’s not. You made sure of that.” He reassured him. “You did it Gumball, you saved the world!”

“I really did, didn’t I?” Gumball said, a bit of laughter now being mixed in with the tears. “I really did it, I actually saved the world. I can’t believe I just did that.”

“I can.” Darwin told him. “I knew you could pull it off, you always do.” 

“Darwin? Did you mean all of that stuff you said back there? Or were you just trying to get me to snap out of it?” Gumball asked. Darwin was surprised that he even had to ask. Didn’t he know the answer by now? 

“Of course I meant it Gumball. You know how much you mean to me.” Gumball nodded, he did know that. He had doubts about many things, but Darwin’s loyalty was not one of them. He just didn’t think he thought of him as highly as he did. 

“I love you.” Gumball said through his tears. “Thank you for always being there for me, even when I didn’t deserve it.” 

“Of course.” Darwin replied. “Besides, you’ve always returned the favor. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you almost gave up the notebook for me. That was stupid, but it was also very sweet.” Gumball and Darwin kept hugging for a bit until Anais cleared her throat to get Gumball’s attention.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to break up the moment here but can you please explain to me what the heck just happened?” Anais broke in. “What was up with that static? Where did it come from? And how did you defeat it with that notebook thing?”

“It’s a really long story.” Gumball admitted. “I promise I’ll tell you guys everything. But not right now, ok? Later. It’ll take a really long time to explain, and that’s not even getting into all the stuff with R-” He grimaced and cut himself off there. He couldn’t say that name, not yet. He tore his gaze from his family and gave a longing look towards the area where Rob fell. There were no static and platforms anymore, but it still happened around there. Darwin noticed Gumball’s discomfort and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Are you ok?” He asked, concerned. Gumball didn’t tear his gaze away from the area, but he gave a small nod. 

“I will be.” 

“Are you sure? I know he meant a lot to you.” 

“He does.” Gumball said simply. “Which is why I….kinda wrote something else in that notebook.” As if it were waiting for its cue, the area where Gumball was looking started to...shimmer almost. As if there was a ripple in reality. There was another bright flash and Rob appeared, looking like he did in season 2. Rob was looking around, a little dazed and wondering just how he got here. Darwin’s eyes widened as he pieced together what happened. Usually he would be against resurrections and would be lecturing Gumball about it, but he could make an exception in this case. 

“Rob!” Gumball shouted in relief. He ran over and hugged Rob with such force that he almost caused him to fall, but he managed to steady himself just in time. “I’m so glad to see you again! I thought I had lost you forever!” He said, crying into Rob’s chest. Rob just looked at Gumball in bewilderment, in shock that he was somehow alive. The last thing he remembered was plummeting and crumbling apart in The Void. How did he get back here? He gave himself a once-over and his eye widened as he discovered that both of his hands were pink again. He flexed his fingers to make sure they were actually attached to him. Was he….was he back in his old body? How was that possible? 

“Did you...did you do this?” Rob asked. Gumball nodded. 

“Of course I did. I couldn’t just let you die.” Rob’s eye widened even more. So he had died, he didn’t imagine that. But then how was he here? Did Gumball bring him back somehow? 

“But-but why?” Rob stuttered. Gumball lifted his head off his chest and gave him a confused and slightly concerned look. 

“What do you mean why? Because I care about you, you idiot! Can you really not see that by now?” Rob was once again thrown by his answer. Yes, he had figured that Gumball had started to care about him, but not to this extent. 

“But why would you care about me after everything I did to you?” Rob asked in confusion. Gumball gave a stern look at this statement. 

“Yeah, everything you did to me including saving my life, cheering me up when I was sad, going back in time to fix everything for me, giving me some of the greatest adventures of my life, and standing up to The Void for me.” Gumball responded. “And what have I done for you in return? I couldn’t even save you from The Void today. I should be the one begging you for forgiveness. I’m so sorry Rob.” Gumball sobbed into Rob’s chest for a bit when he felt long arms reaching around his back. Could it be? Rob was hugging him back? He had never done that before. 

“But you did save me. I wouldn’t be here right now if you didn’t save me.”

“But...I should’ve….”

“You did everything you could.” Rob interrupted. “The Void can be ruthless, I know that very well by now. It’s not your fault you couldn’t stop it.”

“I’m still sorry.” Gumball said. “You mean a lot to me Rob, and I didn’t realize that until you were gone. I just wish I’d figured it out sooner. Maybe things would’ve been different.” Gumball hugged Rob tighter after saying this, leaving Rob floored. 

“Do you….do you really mean that? He asked, stunned. 

“Of course I do. And I don’t intend on ever forgetting that, or you, ever again. Face it Rob, you’re stuck with me now.” Rob didn’t know what to say to that, so he let Gumball keep hugging him. He hadn’t been hugged in a while, he’d forgotten how nice it felt. Especially since he didn’t have to worry about accidentally shocking someone with his static anymore. Right, he should probably ask about that. He had almost forgotten about it since so much of his attention was on the blue cat currently soaking his shirt with his tears. 

“But why give me my old body back?” He asked. Gumball broke the hug at this question and wiped his tears away, trying to pull himself together. Rob probably had a lot of questions and he should probably be at least semi-coherent when giving him the answers. 

“I kinda figured that I owed you one. It was kinda my fault that you got disfigured in the first place.” 

“And The Void? What happened with that while I was….while I was gone?” Rob asked cautiously. He looked around and it seemed like everything was back to normal. Did this mean what he hoped it did? Did Gumball actually manage to save everyone? 

“The Void’s gone dude. It’s never gonna trap you, or kill you, or anything like that ever again.” Rob let out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding. It was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Ever since he had first escaped, he was terrified that The Void would realize that he didn’t belong and pull him back. That if he wasn’t a good enough villain, he would be trapped there again. But it was gone now, it couldn’t hurt him anymore. He couldn’t go back to a place that no longer existed. 

“So you…..you actually destroyed it?” Rob asked, flabbergasted. Gumball nodded. “But how?” 

“Same way I brought you back, I used the notebook.” He said while waving it around. “It turns out that not even The Void can affect stuff from the real world.”

“Wow.” Rob said, looking at the notebook with awe and a dash of fear. As glad as he was that Gumball had used it, it could potentially be very dangerous. “So what are we going to do with this thing now? Honestly, I’m afraid of what will happen if we let you keep it. No offense.” 

“None taken, I would absolutely go mad with power.” Gumball admitted. “But we definitely don’t want this to fall into the wrong hands.” Rob grimaced, imagine what someone could do with a tool that could rewrite all of reality in an instant. They had just stopped one apocalypse, they didn’t need another one. Gumball contemplated it for a bit until his eyes lit up and he wrote something in the notebook. The next second the notebook disappeared. 

“Wait, what did you do?” Rob asked. 

“I sent it back to the real world, where it belongs.” Gumball explained. “Don’t worry, it’ll come back if we really need it again. But hopefully we won’t.” Rob nodded, that made sense. It shouldn’t cause any harm there, and if worse did come to worse they wouldn’t have to journey to the real world again, especially since they’d gotten rid of the only way of getting there. “So, what now?” Gumball asked. “the show is over and we're no longer in immediate danger, so we can do whatever we want.”

“I don’t know.” Rob realized. He’d spent so much time fighting for his freedom, that he had no idea what to do once he finally had it. But he did know one thing, he wasn’t going to be the bad guy anymore. He didn’t have to play a role in order to stay. He could choose who he wanted to be. “But that’s the best part, don’t you think? We get to choose what happens next. We don’t have a script to follow. We could literally do anything.” 

“That sounds terrifying.” Gumball admitted. Like Rob had said at the beginning of this whole adventure, there were no more end credits to come along and save him. But on the other hand, the universe wouldn’t throw him into any more wacky situations for the sake of a plot. He would have to live and die on his own merits. Figure out who he was beyond the script. “But it sounds kind of exciting too.” 

“Well, I know you, and you’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.” Gumball gave a small smile at this. Rob was right. If he could stand up to The Void and save the world he could certainly make his own choices on how to live his life. It would definitely be an adventure, and he had a bit of a knack for those. 

“Well, I guess we’ll have to figure this out as we go along.” Gumball said. “I’m up for it if you are.” Rob slowly gave Gumball a small smile in return. 

“Let’s do it.”

A/N: What? You didn't think I was going to kill Rob permanently, did you? Nah, I don't have the heart to do that. I love him too much. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah. I decided to give in and write my take on how I think everything should end, just in case we don't get that movie. (I still have hope though.) Hope you all like it!


End file.
